“Why do they wait?” Morgause liked it not. Manaugh’s execution should be swift, before Pict sympathizers had time to interfere – or retaliate.
“I have gathered all the families of the villain’s victims to gather here. The Pict king Drest will be offered the opportunity to offer restitution in exchange for Manaugh’s life,” Lot beamed.
“You’d let the murderer run free?” Jecka was shocked.
“If you seek our aid to complete your proposed arrangement, I would advise you not be so rebuking,” the king scolded.
Morgause rolled her eyes. “Mind him not. He merely awaits the day when but one noble woman will heed his nonsense. I believe my husband’s strategy is to get Drest to endorse Manaugh’s execution, to avoid Pictish retaliation and bad blood.”
“Ahh. Drest will not be able to offer enough restitution to save Manaugh!” Now Jecka understood. “Very clever!”
Lot smiled a toothy grin, even as a messenger neared. He anticipated it was word of Drest. He was not prepared for the actuality.
“My sire? We have word. The tales of last summer are true. The beast has come ashore and devoured three fishing villages not a day’s ride up the north shore.”
“What is it?” Jecka demanded. “A sea dragon?”
Lot’s face was pale. “Not just any dragon, my dear. My grandfather’s people called it Jormangund.”
“Jorr-man-khund?”
“Close.”
“What is it?”
Lot sighed. “It is a creature so ferocious that the northmen gods kicked it out of their heaven. It is the offspring of a dangerous trickster, foretold to one day devour the world. It is so large its body stretches the length of the very ocean, a length beyond our very ken. It is the Midgard Serpent, the serpent of this world, and it is beginning to devour Britain itself.”
“Husband? Three villages does not mean it will take the entire isle. It has eaten before, and been sated-“
“Aye. Normally it eats its share and vanishes for generations or more. Whether asleep or devouring bits of faraway lands, I know not. Or so t’is said. But it has eaten steadily these past three years, in Khundia, Gaul, Eiru and here. Mayhap elsewhere, too. It seems hungrier than ever, and a fae sorceress named Medb seems to have set it after us.”
“How dost thou know all this?” Morgause was annoyed her husband had kept this all to himself.
“I only just learned this of late. Last year, there was a gathering of fae. This Medb seeks Rokk’s downfall,” Lot did not want to reveal how intimate his source was before the womenfolk.
“You… trust this source?” Morgause guessed something close to the truth.
“…Aye.”
The conversation was interrupted by a rumbling, and Lot jumped to have his men ready for action. Lothian was safe, but a small peninsula not an hour’s ride away with a village, a small castle – and even a blacksmith renowned throughout Lothian, were gone.
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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An array of computi fired as the beast drew closer, unleashing a sea of flaming oils and enough bolts that could knock down the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria, according to Querl; that much Dyrk could recall of the Greek’s description of the planned maneuver now actually being employed. Designed to decimate a Khund attack on Lothian, an array of towers on either side of the firth had begun a coordinated assault.
The serpent noticed not.
Annoyed, frustrated and helpless, Dyrk fidgeted with his sword pummel, yet also chastised himself – what good would a sword do against a creature like THAT?
The serpent’s head was as wide as the eastern firth, and the closer it got, the wider it made the firth as it ate away at the shores. It’s head seemed to be just as long, but blended into a long neck behind it that continued out to sea and disappeared, either eclipsed by its own mass or continuing below the waves. It was gray-green and scaly, and its teeth appeared thrice taller than even the tallest of towers. Aye, thrice taller than the forested hills in the distance as well.
He had heard of Jonah and Garth defeating dragons, dragons that were big, but nowhere near as big as this.
How do we begin to fight such a creature?
With the computi attack failed, Lot ordered an infantry attack, dual attacks from either side of the firth where the creature’s mouth met its food. But the creature ate still; advancing troops were caught up in the dislodged erupting ground beneath them before any blade could touch the creature, and the few that did stab the beast saw their swords lodged with no effect.
Again, the creature noticed not.
Lot next ordered a naval assault. It fared no better. Within the hour, Lothian’s army was in tatters, its navy destroyed and its coastal towers gone without a trace. If the creature had taken a few more bites Lothian towne itself would have been no more.
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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Torachi’s ship intercepted the trio just at they were about to round the broad head of northern Caledonia, halfway between Lothian and the Orkneys. MacKell, Marla and Andrew were quite surprised to find their monarch voluntarily on the pirate’s boat, and even more surprised to hear their tale of a giant sea serpent eating away at the firth that leads in towards the great glen itself. No longer was the northeastern Caledonia coast a gentle half-circle with coves and bays, bur was now a deep L-shape – hundreds of square leagues had been eaten away, and King Rokk and the fearsome Torachi had both been powerless to stop it.
MacKell took the time he needed to focus his vision on things afar and he scanned the seas. Soon after he confirmed the monster of geographical proportions had just retreated from Lothian’s firth, out to deep sea.
“It must like river outlets,” Torachi commented. The rivers and deep harbours must give up the foodstuffs it craves most.”
Marla was surprised to see the monstrous looking brigand so thoughtful and civil. He was half-man, half-monster as so oft described, it was true, but there was a sharp intellect – a devious intellect, behind steely eyes both human and not.
Drest, too, was baffled by the villain. He’d heard tales of Hebridean Picts being slain by the raider, yet one would not know that from his present demeanor, aside from his coldness of person. Torachi’s crew seemed an unseemly lot – but they kept their silence and politeness, apparently more out of fear and resentment than by genuine civility, though.
Torachi’s ship set a quick pace for Lothian. He seemed strangely eager to take on the monster, for reasons that made no sense to his guests.
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“Our messengers had to return. A blizzard has rolled in from Ulster. There is no passage by land, and we dare not take to the sea,” Lot’s castellan reported.
Morgause was displeased. Lothian was vulnerable… too vulnerable. She had often resented inability to advance her family’s existing gains, but now for the first time it all seemed at risk. Jecka was glad to be kept abreast of all new information, but did not like the news either.
“Also,” the castellan hesitantly reported, “we have reports of a large ogre menacing the southern villages.
“The ogre Validus?” Jecka guessed. “I had heard it had left Perilous Forest for the north last autumn.”
“Have we not monsters enough?” Morgause angrily demanded of North Cymru’s daughter. “Must you wish for every possible ill upon us? If Midgard Serpent, Manaugh and Darkness were not enough, must Lothian receive every fiend? Why not Saraid and Torachi whilst we are wishing!?!” Lothian’s queen was getting hysterical.
“I was merely---”
“Merely wishing doom on my kingdom! You wish to belong to this family? I say NAY! Out with you! Get OUT, you shrew!”
Jecka left as dignified and diplomatically as she could, and stewed in her own regrets thereafter. If Lothian could not bear one more monster, mayhap she could handle this one herself.
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Andrew was overcome with a dread that ran into his very bones in empathy for his friend Val’s homeland; it was scarred and disfigured in a way that made all the recent Yuletide peace of the Orkneys seem like a chimera.
He had been to Lothian once before as a youth, and had spent a summer here with his merchant uncle. The fields where he played, where his local knights held their jousts, were now but gone – muddy sea-water stood in their place, and cliffs of dirt, stone and clay stood with uncertainty overlooking them.
Townspeople were fleeing uphill from whence their settlement had been, carrying everything they could by cart, beast or on their backs. It was not a frigid day; a northern spring breeze brought the promise but not the reality of the seasons of green. The remnants of snows here at least were not as plentiful as they had been further up the northern shore.
There were no ships to greet and escort them. Andrew felt vulnerable for Lothian, entering port with a raider like Torachi.
The moorings were a lonely place. Fishing boats were overturned, abandoned or half-sunk, as the waves the serpent had created had maimed all boats and all shore buildings. With nowhere to moor, Torachi dropped anchor, and lowered a plank into the water. It reached to shallow waters; the shore party would have to wade the last dozen or so feet.
Andrew was even more alarmed by the look of resignation in King Lot’s eyes, something that matched not the proud descriptions his sons painted of him. He heard servants in hushed whispers say that the king had refused to see his wife Queen Morgause, refused to let her see the defeat his eyes now contained. He still had that pride (or perhaps even love? Andrew knew not these royals, only their sons).
There was no way to get word to any southern armies, not even nearby Ryhged or Dalraida. Rokk, despite his growing legend, inspired no hope in the face of this menace, from noble or peasant alike – nor did the high king offer a strategy that had not been tried and failed.
Lot offered no resistance nor hope when Torachi made an audacious suggestion, one that caught even Rokk by surprise.
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The northern seas were calm, only gently lapping up onto the large western bay of the North Isle.
“Where… where are our people?” L’ile asked hesitantly.
“Gone.” She said it with resignation but nod sadness. “Gone to the West.”
To the West. L’ile felt his throat clench. He’d been so certain they were here, hiding, waiting out the disaster. But “going West,” the direction of the setting sun, meant--
“No, mituat’ha. Really,” his companion realized his assumption. “They have truly traveled west, to a new isle.” She looked away. “Those that survived, at least.”
“Did…?”
“Your father lives. Or did, when the People left here. Your mother… I saw not.”
L’ile absorbed the news. It was a long interval before he spoke again. “We… should join them.”
“In time. Perhaps.” She turned to him and tenderly massaged his hand. “But you must first return to Pen’t’raigh’a.”
“Will you come with me, Myla?”
“I was just there. You missed me.”
L’ile was silent.
“Do you not wish to go back? You seemed quite adapted there.”
He nodded. “Perhaps more than I should be. But coming here reminds me, I am yet of The People. I would like to see my kin again.”
“You will, dear Rowan, you will.”
L’ile picked up their skins and handed one to Myla. “I will accompany you to a shore of your choosing at the southern end of the Hebrides Sea. But your path and mine must remain separate for just a while longer, dear one.”
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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King Drest accompanied Andrew as they descended into the donjon.
Their prisoner was locked firmly in place, unable to move any limb. He smelled of human wastes.
The guard shrugged at their reactions, as if to say, “why bother? He’s not going to live that much longer anyway.”
Andrew felt some reluctant kinship towards Drest, but tried not to see any in Manaugh. Those of the Orkneys were largely a mesh of Pict and Northman, a fact many have forgotten since those isles became Lothian holdings.
“Hello Manaugh.” Drest was neither cheerful nor reproachful.
“Greetings, Drest. I hear you are our… king now.”
“I am.”
“Are you here to free me, or aid my execution and sell me out in the name of Caledonian ‘friendship’?”
“Neither, it turns out. I am here to ask your assistance.”
The prisoner cracked up laughing at the latest. “I can help no one, t’would seem.”
“Oh, but you can,” Drest continued. “I can secure your release, and you can help save this land. All you must do is swear to set aside your grudge against the clan of Amlaidh.”
“Never!”
“Then you die, and your grudge dies with you. Either way, the clan of Amlaidh has won. You can go to your grave remembered as a villain, even by your own people, or you can help save Pict and Vodatni alike.”
“Save from who?” That Manaugh was remotely curious made Andrew smile cautiously. Drest’s words were winning the battle, it seemed.
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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MacKell returned from the west with all three items he had sought: a magic gauntlet from the Pictish priestess Tasmia, the orb called the Justice of Balor, and its wielder Saraid herself. He only hoped Rokk could later find a way out of the pledge they had to offer her, to back her as Eiru’s high queen and empress.
The Princess Jecka, it seemed, had sought to hire a mercenary to help repel the ogre Validus. She planned to use her family’s own special gifts, but needed a hired sword – and instead came up with a hired axe. Rokk and Dyrk had once fought this axe-man Chaontigh and knew his value; his allegiance was purchased less costly than Saraid’s.
Sir Dyrk had found Validus and had lured it along peacefully with the charm Torachi had given him, just as the bandit-king had promised. Torachi was playing them all as fools, MacKell knew, but hoped that he could destroy or divert the monster away from Britain. At the new encampment, Validus sat in a stupor, like a doll waiting to be played with.
Andrew and King Drest had the shortest voyage geographically, but perhaps the longest in sales – most presumed that Manaugh would prefer execution to collaboration. No one else but Drest could have pulled this one off.
Presently, Torachi began to outline his plan.
“The ten of us are capable of defeating, perhaps even slaying this Jormangund. We will do so here, on the north side of Lothian’s firth, and we shall lure the serpent here.
“The key is Sir Dyrk. Some of you may know that the crumbling Roman cult of Apollo expected a sun king to arise and restore the cult to prominence. Some of you may even know Dyrk was supposed to be that sun king. But none but Dyrk may have heard and perhaps not even he has believed that he is an actual descendent of Apollo.”
Dyrk squirmed uncomfortably; he disliked hearing Regulus’ nonsense from Regulus himself, let alone this villain.
Torachi continued. “Two days from now is the vernal equinox, the beginning of the half-year when Dyrk’s aspects align, and he can be a sun king, if he so desires. I have with me some amulets and sacred robes from the Apollonian temples of Rome and Greece that should channel his divine ancestor’s gifts, if he is willing to play his part.”
“How does a bandit-king know enough to step in and save the day?” Dyrk challenged. “Verily, your victims these past years were not so fortunate.”
“T’is true I am a raider and even a thief, and I was so when merely human flesh I wore. But the priests of the Jewes who saved my life gave me more than a monstrous half-body,” he gestured to his side, “they gave me insights into the great deeds of this era. Including the battle we now face. All my raidings in recent years have been to prepare for this very fight!” For a moment, he was almost giddy at the prospect – before his cold, scheming glare returned.
Mulling his words, Rokk recalled that Reep, L’ile Laoraighll and Ossian had encountered Torachi in proximity to the Stone of Virtue, an artifact strongly tied to Saraid’s orb.
“Jormangund is the offspring of the trickster Loki, and is drawn to the shiny and exotic. Dyrk, a sun king on the equinox, will be an irresistible target, if we can use the proper imagery and appeals, imagery the Princess Jecka is vital to provide. And the presence of Rokk, wearing the coat of Ursuik, could not hurt.
“Once summoned, we need to strike at an exact spot, a small between its eyes. We will need to step onto its head above the mouth as it bites into the land, and run almost a half-league to reach our attack point before it moves again and we are thrown into land or sea. When we get near, Chaontigh will use his axe to carve us an opening, and MacKell, the empress, Manaugh and King Rokk will hack our way inside.”
“Inside?”
“Aye. It’s scaly skin is quite impenetrable on the outside, I fear. But on the inside, if t’is like any serpent I have cut apart, there should be a cavity it may breathe through in which we can find its heart and slay it.”
Rokk could not help but compare Torachi’s thinking and insights to Querl’s. He liked the situation not, but Torachi had presented a plan that had at least a slim measure of hope.
“But why Lothian’s north firth? Why not somewhere farther from a town?” Andrew asked.
“As we have observed, the serpent prefers places where rivers flow into the seas, and deep harbours. This is the only one we can reach by equinox. Yet by diverting to the north shore, we can hopefully prevent Lothian from being destroyed.”
Andrew just knew Torachi was lying about some part of this plan, but knew not what.
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“Fear is for babies and women-folk!” Harlack exclaimed impatiently. “I thought you northlanders were of sterner stuff than southland city-folk.”
“I merely said we should get to shelter, as we were told,” Gaheris said.
“Boys!” Morgause scolded. “There is nothing cowardly about getting out of the way of the warriors.” She singled out Harlack. “A warrior needs to follow orders. Ours are to get out of the way so that my husband’s men can follow their own orders.”
She led them up the hill that paralleled the plateau of Lothian Castle. “See? Even now the soldiers of Lothian prepare, should the creature resurface whilst King Rokk and his men fight the beast!”
“How can even King Rokk defeat a monster such as that?” Gaheris demanded.
“Because he isn’t a scared little boy,” Harlack shot back.
“Actually, King Rokk once prevailed as a little boy,” Morgause told them, modifying a bardic tale she’s recently heard.
The boys set aside their fears and frustrations. A good tale of knighthood was always in order.
“T’was but at Yule last year, when most of King Rokk’s knights were at home with their kin, when his messenger, the Moor Jenni, returned with word of a wizard bespelling the village of Zinth. Rokk and his knights rode to Zinth and tried to take the wizard’s magic gem away from him. But in doing so, the gem’s magic turned them into children, and they were fostered out into the castles of five evil lords.”
“Were they afraid?” Gaheris asked.
“Aren’t all children afraid sometimes?” Morgause asked. Harlack scoffed.
Just then, the sky was filled with Jormangund’s head rearing high into the air, then slamming down into the sea. A huge wall of sea-water spewed out, crashing onto every visible shore. Even where the queen, her escorts and young charges stood far inland, an echo of that blast sheeted down upon them like a drenching hammer-blow; all were knocked to the ground and soaked to the bone on this chilly winter-spring day.
Gaheris laughed at the fear apparent in Harlack’s face, but Morgause would have none of it. “Let our servants build a fire that we may become dry and warm and not catch a pox, and I shall continue my story…”
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“Hello?” Only a damp echo answered Rokk. This belly of the beast was huge enough that gusts of odoriferous winds blew across the surface. It was like an underground sea, salt water with a slightly acidic feel. The air and water felt thicker here, thicker and hotter. Every time the beast moved, the entire sea was tossed into an uproar. Rokk took another breath and held it as he was tossed around. None had worn armour for this quest; there was too much likelihood of it being more hindrance and no sign that it would even help.
He soon found a partially digested tree to grab hold of. It was completely dark and very eerie, with only the sound of distant gurgling. But soon there was the sound of splashing.
“Hello?”
“Over here.” The splasher had Manaugh’s voice.
“I’m on a tree. Try to make your way this way.”
A few grunts later the splasher was a few feet away. Rokk considered extending a hand, then thought the better of it – what if he’d found a way out of the shackled gauntlet without needing Torachi’s key? Manuagh climbed on board without help.
“King of all ye survey, then?”
Rokk smiled at the jest, and offered a brief chuckle since no one would see the smile.
“T’would be nice to see.”
“Let my hand free and I can set an ember on this tree.”
“Burning trees make not good rafts,” Rokk countered.
“Aye. But I can set but a small bit ablaze, that we might see a place to paddle, rather that sit in the dark awaiting to be digested.”
Rokk reluctantly agreed, and found Torachi’s lock. T’was metal, luckily. He held onto both lock and gauntlet for Manaugh, and true to his word a tiny speck of ember began on the tree’s bark. It illuminated not much but more than Rokk expected, but their acclimation to the darkness plus the stomach gases no doubt augmented their range of visibility.
There was a sea of earthen debris extending as far as the speck of light illuminated, and no sign of the others, nor even of the stomach’s walls. The duo broke off branches, picked a direction and started paddling.
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Jecka came to in a panic, recalling her sister’s fate in that North Cymru pond so long ago. She flailed and gasped, breathing in water and started to lose conciousness. When she awoke again, she was being held upside-down by a giant hand.
She heard in the darkness the grunting and mouth-breathing of the terrifying giant, and she could well imagine its nose-less face, its strange one-eye that was not an eye.
Despite its legend and size, it was not a violent creature – since she had seen it, at least. Yes, it was said to have terrorized many from here to Perilous Forest, but like a giant child it seemed to fluctuate between play and tantrum.
Presently it began to howl, perhaps tired of floating in dark waters, perhaps feeling helpless for the first time in its life. Jecka was uncomfortable using her family’s gifts of seeming. At their best they needed furnishings that aided these seemings, but a simple way of manipulating light needed only a bit of focus and perspective – to realize that darkness is as much illusion as anything else, and to look at different kinds of light.
Soon she and the ogre were awash in a violet glow not unlike moonlight, the creature’s whitish head particularly standing out.
She and the ogre looked around at the stomach waters around them; rising and falling waves looked like dancing splashes of light. Validus was almost childishly giggling at the spectacle.
Eventually, gently as it could, it placed her on its shoulder and started splashing its way in a particular direction.
It is still drawn to Torachi’s charm! She realized, hoping the others were still together.
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“What do you think?” Andrew asked, trying to stay afloat.
“I think we’re in pretty deep,” Dyrk replied, fairing slightly better. The two had managed to cling to a piece of wood, but it was small and waterlogged, and when the beast had turned they almost lost it in the swell.
To further complicate matters, Dyrk still not only glowed but the water around him gurgled into a boiling steam. Andrew found it hard to look at him, and he had to position himself as far from him as possible to avoid being cooked. If the wood debris was not so soaked, it would no doubt be aflame.
“I think I liked being dead better,” Andrew laughed.
“You may get your wish,” Dyrk laughed back.
The smoldering and damp wood was starting to give way, and the stomach sea was getting rough again. Dyrk let go. He’d not let Andrew’s lift raft burn up and leave his fellowe helpless.
“Dyrk! No!”
The Roman knight more than half regretted his decision. Treading water in boiling, steaming water was near impossible, even when one could withstand the heat.
Andrew watched in horror as the bright glow that was Dyrk vanished beneath the waves and gradually disappeared in the darkness of the deep.
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“I’d hoped to get you alone, but not like this.” Saraid’s orb emanated a green glow amid the thick darkness. Using her light, she had found the remnants of one side of a boat, and used her orb to propel it. MacKell was in no danger of drowning, but lacked mobility that the would-be empress could provide.
“My thanks,” he replied, climbing aboard.
“You are a fine Irish warrior,” she praised. “Would you not be better served defending the Irish people?”
“I go where I am needed. This British court, Rokk’s company of knights, is like one not seen in Eiru in six centuries.”
“The Craebh Ruadh,” she replied, surprising him.
“You know of it?”
“I am an Irish monarch who listens to her bards. And I know enough to see when a legend is reborne, Sentanta.” Her index finger caressed his face. “Join me, and we will make an Irish nation worthy of our ancestors!”
“…Let us find the others and slay this beast, or else any of our plans are for naught.”
Saraid let him focus his vision on seeing afar, and one by one started locating the others. He saw Torachi near both Chaontigh and Andrew, and Validus swimming after them carrying Jecka; all four were straight ahead. But looking behind them, he saw Rokk and Manaugh (where was Dyrk?) along the stomach wall, and Manaugh about to touch it.
“Hold on, Saraid! The serpent is about to-”
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It had been too long since she’d had one of those.
She’d considered trying to find the invisible treasure of the Iceni, but some Trommite monk had beaten her. Torachi’s horde of treasure? Maybe… but where was Torachi’s lair these days? And whatever treasure-stores old king Bors had accumulated were well-guarded by a Bainsidhe, and probably not worth the bother, when all was said and done.
But this… this was a challenge!
“The ruins of a monastery, you say?” She sipped her wine, trying not to let on how intrigued she was.
“Aye,” said the prefect. “King Clovis is ill, and Queen Guinevere’s delegation vanished rather rudely and abruptly. The queen did admit that the British have possession of San Graal, the holy chalice of Our Lord. Or rather this heretic order called the Josephites keep it for them.
“Clovis’ very life may be at stake, Sussiah. If you can… obtain the Grail for us from this demonic other-world they call Avalon, you’ll find the Kingdom of the Franks will be quite generous.”
“Why then we have a deal, Prefect Vidar.”
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