Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

There were a dozen Fox Clan or more crowded around the end of the yard now, growling and grunting louder and uglier than the hogs. They waved jagged swords, axes, rough clubs in their fists, a few with shields too, one at the front with a rusted chain hauberk on, tattered around the hem, straggling hair tangled with rings of rough-forged silver.

“Back.” Whirrun stood tall in front of them, holding out his sword at long arm’s length, hilt up, like it was some magic charm to ward off evil. “Back, and you needn’t die today.”

The one in mail spat, then snarled back at him in broken Northern. “Show us your iron, thief!”

“Then I will. Look upon the Father of Swords, and look your last.” And Whirrun drew it from the sheath.

Men might’ve had a hundred names for it—Dawn Razor, Grave-Maker, Blood Harvest, Highest and Lowest, Scac-ang-Gaioc in the valley tongue which means the Splitting of the World, and so on, and so on—but Craw had to admit it was a disappointing length of metal. There was no flame, no golden light, no distant trumpets or mirrored steel. Just the gentle scrape as long blade came free of stained leather, the flat grey of damp slate, no shine or ornament about it, except for the gleam of something engraved down near the plain, dull crosspiece.

But Craw had other worries than that Whirrun’s sword wasn’t worth all the songs. “Door!” he squealed at Yon, scrabbling at the edge of it with his left hand, all tangled up with his shield, shoving his sword through the gap and waving it about to no effect. “My fucking foot!”

Yon roared as he pounded up the steps and rammed into the door with his shoulder. It gave all of a sudden, tearing from its hinges and crushing some fool underneath. Him and Craw burst stumbling into the room beyond, dim as twilight, hazy with scratchy-sweet smoke. A shape came at Craw and he whipped his shield up on an instinct, felt something thud into it, splinters flying in his face. He reeled off-balance, crashed into something else, metal clattering, pottery shattering. Someone loomed up, a ghostly face, a necklace of rattling teeth. Craw lashed at him with his sword, and again, and again, and he went down, white-painted face spattered with red.

Craw coughed, retched, coughed, blinking into the reeking gloom, sword ready to swing. He heard Yon roaring, heard the thud of an axe in flesh and someone squeal. The smoke was clearing now, enough for Craw to get some sense of the hall. Coals glowed in a fire pit, lighting a spider’s web of carved rafters in sooty red and orange, casting shifting shadows on each other, tricking his eyes. The place was hot as hell, and smelled like hell besides. Old hangings around the walls, tattered canvas daubed with painted marks. A block of black stone at the far end, a rough statue standing over it, and at its feet the glint of gold. A cup, Craw thought. A goblet. He took a step towards it, trying to waft the murk away from his face with his shield.

“Yon?” he shouted.

“Craw, where you at?”

Some strange kind of song was coming from somewhere, words Craw didn’t know but didn’t like the sound of. Not one bit. “Yon?” And a figure sprang up suddenly from behind that block of stone. Craw’s eyes went wide and he almost fell in the fire pit as he stumbled back.

He wore a tattered red robe; long, sinewy arms sticking from it, spread wide, smeared with paint and beaded up with sweat, the skull of some animal drawn down over his face, black horns curling from it so he looked in the shifting light like a devil bursting straight up from hell. Craw knew it was a mask, but looming up like that out of the smoke, strange song echoing from that skull, he felt suddenly rooted to the spot with fear. So much he couldn’t even lift his sword. Just stood there trembling, every muscle turned to water. He’d never been a hero, that was true, but he’d never felt fear like this. Not even at Ineward when he’d seen the Bloody-Nine coming for him, snarling madman’s face all dashed with other men’s blood. He stood helpless.

“Fuh…fuh…fuh…”

The priest came forward, lifting one long arm. He had a thing gripped in painted fingers. A twisted piece of wood, the faintest pale glow about it.

The thing. The thing they’d come for.

Light flared from it brighter and brighter, so bright it burned its twisted shape fizzing into Craw’s eyes, the sound of the song filling his ears until he couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t think anything else, couldn’t see nothing but that thing, searing bright as the sun, stealing his breath, crushing his will, stopping his breath, cutting his—

Crack. Jolly Yon’s axe split the animal skull in half and chopped into the face underneath it. Blood sprayed, hissed in the coals of the fire pit. Craw felt spots on his face, blinked, and shook his head, loosed all of a sudden from the freezing grip of fear. The priest lurched sideways, song turned to a gutturing gurgle, mask split in half and blood squirting from under it. Craw snarled as he swung his sword and it chopped into the sorcerer’s chest and knocked him over on his back. The thing bounced from his hand and span away across the rough plank floor, the blinding light faded to the faintest glimmer.

“Fucking sorcerers,” snarled Yon, curling his tongue and blowing spit onto the corpse. “Why do they bother? How long does it take to learn all that jabber and it never does you half the good a decent knife…” He frowned. “Uh-oh.”

The priest had fallen in the fire pit, scattering glowing coals across the floor. A couple had spun as far as the ragged hem of one of the hangings.

“Shit.” Craw took a step on shaky legs to kick it away. Before he got there, flame sputtered around the old cloth. “Shit.” He tried to stamp it out, but his head was still a touch spinny and he only got embers scattered up his trouser leg, had to hop around, slapping them off. The flames spread, licking up faster’n the plague. Too much flame to put out, spurting higher than a man. “Shit!” Craw stumbled back, feeling the heat on his face, red shadows dancing among the rafters. “Get the thing and let’s go!”

Yon was already fumbling with the straps on his leather pack. “Right y’are, chief, right y’are! Backup plan!”

Craw left him and hurried to the doorway, not sure who’d be alive still on the other side. He burst out into the day, light stabbing at his eyes after the gloom.

Wonderful was standing there, mouth hanging wide open. She’d an arrow nocked to her half-drawn bow, but it was pointed at the ground, hands slack. Craw couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her surprised.

“What is it?” he snapped, getting his sword tangled up on the doorframe then snarling as he wrenched it free, “you hurt?” He squinted into the sun, shading his eyes with his shield. “What’s the…” And he stopped on the steps and stared. “By the dead.”

Whirrun had hardly moved, the Father of Swords still gripped in his fist, long, dull blade pointing to the ground. Only now he was spotted and spattered head to toe in blood, and the twisted and hacked, split and ruined corpses of the dozen Fox Clan who’d faced him were scattered around his boots in a wide half-circle, a few bits that used to be attached to them scattered wider still.

“He killed the whole lot.” Brack’s face was all crinkled up with confusion. “Just like that. I never even lifted my hammer.”

“Damndest thing,” muttered Wonderful. “Damndest thing.” She wrinkled her nose. “Can I smell smoke?”

Yon burst from the hall, stumbled into Craw’s back, and nearly sent the pair of them tumbling down the steps. “Did you get the thing?” snapped Craw.

“I think I…” Yon blinked at Whirrun, stood tall in his circle of slaughter. “By the dead, though.”