The Howler of the Wastes
Apr 10, 2018 21:38:24 GMT -5
Post by Char-Vell on Apr 10, 2018 21:38:24 GMT -5
The Howler of the Wastes
I
“It is done!” exclaimed Gansuk as he burst into the cabin, throwing to the planked floor a spear and wolfskin cloak. The big Hyrkanian’s eyes were wild, and sweat beaded on his brow in spite of the blizzard that raged outside. The other five occupants of the cabin lurched to their feet in shocked surprise.
Bayarma, the matronly proprietor of this rude timber way station poised by the northernmost shore of the Vilayet, bolted from behind the makeshift bar and confronted Gansuk. “What is done? Where is the foreigner? She said you were going to fetch Batzorig and Chingis here before nightfall! What has happened?
Gansuk ran his sleeve across his bearded face, and brandished his studded war-club. “I slew the outlander! Just past the Tortoise Rock I brained the yellow-haired she-devil and left her in a snowdrift. Now the howler shall be appeased!”
“But my brothers!” Bayarma protested, “You were to bring them here!”
“It’s no matter! With the barbarian slain, and the Howler appeased. They are in no danger!”
At this, Monkbat, a slight, wiry Hyrkanian trapper clad in sealskin, spoke, “Indeed? How has this deed appeased the Howler? Would you now slay your employers here? They too are foreigners, are they not?” He jerked a dirty thumb to the couple standing by the hearth; a finely formed mahogany skinned woman and an ebon giant, both clad in fine silks and linens beneath their fur parkas, and both of obvious refinement.
Gansuk frantically strove to reassure the couple, for whom he had acted as guide for the past fortnight. “Nay! Fear not Madame Anesu, mighty Garai! You are not to blame! It was not till the yellow-haired witch arrived at our door that this freakish blizzard struck in the midst of the spring thaw, and the Howler was heard on the steppe!”
“Are you certain she’s dead?” asked Garai.
“Aye! I smote her in the back of the skull hard enough to fell an ox. Even if she survived that, she’d freeze before she found her way back here. I took her cloak and spear. It‘s all over now! We can..”
Gansuk was interrupted as the front door was shaken violently, pulled from the outside against the heavy bar that secured it.
“By the Four Winds!” exclaimed Monkbat, "The Howler! It’s at the door!”
With a resounding crash the door burst inward off its hinges and fell to the floor, admitting a frigid gust, alive with thick gobbets of snow. With this came a figure in burnished scale mail, a green eyed giantess, her tawny hair clotted with blood, teeth bared and gripping a great war-axe.
Gansuk howled incoherently and swung his club at the intruder. His blow was parried on the axe haft and a savage kick to his chest sent him sprawling to the planks. The axe fell, shattering his upraised club and splitting Gansuk’s skull in twain in a welter of blood and brains. Screaming, the woman raised the axe again and cleaved the Hyrkanian’s breastbone. Air freed from his burst lungs produced a cloud of crimson mist.
Bayarma screamed and cowered by the bar. Garai drew his sickle bladed sword and placed himself between Anesu and the blonde savage. Monkbat stood unmoving, staring with wide eyed incredulity at the carnage. The intruder braced her back against the far wall and brandished her gore clotted axe.
“So you curs thought you’d brain me and leave me to the blizzard? Who dies next!”
“Be still, Sigyn.” said Garai, speaking the tongue of the Hyrkanians near perfectly, in calm , well modulated tones. His polite, courtly manner seeming at odds with his hulking appearance. “Gansuk did that deed on his own, we had naught to do with it”
“YOU be still, Kushite! Sheathe that shotel and step back where you were ere I strike off your head!”
Anger flickered in Garai’s eyes for but an instant, then he complied, stating calmly. “We are not Kushites, we come from Zembabwei.”
“That is hardly germane to the matter.” said Monkbat. “How did you make it through that squall such a distance, with no coat and a cracked skull.
Sigyn’s eyes blazed wildly, and her grin was frightening to behold. “Ha! I am an Aesir, you little fool! My tribe found me frolicking naked in a blizzard worse than this one when I was barely old enough to walk, and my skull is too thick for one of you horse-buggering jackals to crack, by Ymir!”
Sigyn abruptly seized Bayarma by her dark, braided hair and hurled the hysterical woman into the midst of the others.
“All of you stay where I can see you, and don’t move while I decide what’s to be done.
Sigyn had arrived at the way station two days before, wandering east after a vexing visit to her homeland, planning to wait here until a boat arrived to take her south via the Vilayet sea. The weather had been pleasant, a majority of the winter snow had melted and grass and flowers had begun to appear here and there. Then abruptly, a blizzard had rolled in, blanketing the land in snow and ice, and frigid temperatures colder than the coldest winter remembered by the locals. She had grown bored, trapped in the cabin, So when odd hoots and howls could be heard outside, and Bayarma had expressed worry about her brothers who were off hunting, Sigyn volunteered to fetch them to the cabin. She had thought nothing of Gansuk’s offer to accompany her, and was unprepared for his treachery.
Now she stood leaning unsteadily against the wall, facing down her fellow lodgers.
“How long would you keep us like this Yellow-Hair?” asked Monkbat. “You can barely stand! Why not lower that axe and let Bayarma see to that wound? We can have tea and…”
“Cease your prattle, Monkbat! And call me Yellow-Hair again and you’ll sip your tea in hell!”
“Please Sigyn!” sobbed Bayarma, “I tell you we did not know! Gansuk was near frantic with fear of the Howler. He thought you brought it with you, as you passed through Hyperborea. Please, my brothers…”
“The Howler!” Sigyn scoffed. “There is no damned Howler! Those are wolves, or the winds whipping over the snowdrifts. I had thought you Hyrkanians to be made of stronger stuff! I’ll… Hold! What is…”
There was a rattling and bumping under the floorboards between Sigyn and the assembled lodgers. Before any had a chance to comment or act, the floorboards burst upward, and a figure leapt into their midst.
It was a grey, gaunt giant of a man, naked save for a dirty rag twisted about his loins, gripping a rusted sword, his wild unruly mane of white hair blowing in the wind. No sooner had he stood upright, another, who could be his twin, stepped through the smashed front doorway, and a third and fourth burst through the shuttered windows opposite.
“Damballah!” swore Garai, drawing his sickle-sword from his girdle, “While we argued, they stole upon us.”
Next there was a tempest of steel! The man who’d burst up from the floor thrust his rusty sword at Sigyn’s belly. She twisted enough so her mail coat deflected the blade, and swung her axe, hacking thought the gaunt neck so that the man’s lifeless corpse reeled backward fountaining blood, the head hanging absurdly by a strip of flesh. Barely in time she noticed another of the grey wights had slipped in the window behind her. Savagely she beat down his blade and pulped his skull with a flurry of mighty blows.
Wheeling to face another attacker, she observed Garai swing his Sickle sword such that it bypassed his assailant’s parry and skewered him through the ear. Nearby, Monkbat had drawn a broad saber and was slashing at the back of the final intruder, who was hunched over the still form of Bayarma. The fiendish ghoul falling only after Monkbat had carved great chunks of meat from his back so that ribs and spine shone whitely.
“Secure the doors and windows!” commanded Garai with such calm authority that all hastened to obey the ebon giant, their recent quarrel set aside. The door was set upright and wedged shut, the windows shuttered and likewise fixed.
The worked finished, Sigyn squatted down by the bar, making sure she could see all within, and hailed Anesu, who was tending to Bayarma.
“How is she?”
“Dead, I’m afraid. There’s no mark on her. I suspect terror stilled her heart.”
Monkbat slumped in a chair and made a sign to the Four Winds. “She was a good, gentle woman.” he said, his voice aquiver. “This is not the end I would have had for her.”
Sigyn reflected that many was the good and gentle person who came to a cruel and bloody end, but held her peace. Instead, she cast her gaze upon the bodies of their attackers.
“What do you make of them?” asked Garai.
“They’ve the look of Hyperborian Witchmen, but I did not think that cult ranged this far east. And I do not recognize that sigil painted upon their breasts.”
“There I can help. I have seen a symbol much like that drawn in what was alleged to be a copy of the Book Of Skelos. Tis the sigil of Ithaqua.”
“Ithaqua? I’ve heard that name. That’s some devil that ruled the frozen north ere Ymir made it his domain. Perhaps that cur Gansuk was not as…”
Sigyn’s voice trailed off as her attention was drawn by a strange low buzzing sound. The others heard it to and swung their heads bout to locate the source.
“The boathouse” muttered Monkbat. “It’s coming from the boathouse.” he rushed to the window and peered through the gaps in the shutters, wincing at the cold air that assailed his eyes. “I see it, by Erlik! A shadow among the snows! A great furred beast! The Howler!”
Sigyn looked out the window nearest her. Several yards from the cabin a rude pier and boathouse had been built to contain various canoes and small rafts. It now loomed silently over the frozen waters of the Vilayet. Between the boathouse and the cabin, Sigyn made out a hulking, furry shape, it seemed to approach with a smooth, but unnatural gait.
“That’s no beast.” she said. “More likely another Witchman in a fur coat.”
The buzzing continued and grew louder. Slowly it took on the semblance of coherency. Monkbat fell to his knees clutching his ears, and Sigyn’s stomach turned as the unnatural mockery of a human voice intoned with maddening sibilance.
“Return that which is ours or die ere the sun rises.”