In Savage Lands

By Jason E. Thummel

A small band of rebellious slaves, fleeing an undead terror; an untested leader, willing to sacrifice everything to save his people; a man driven to become the thing he hates most in order to exact a terrible vengeance...

These are just a few of those you will meet within.

Against unfathomable odds, the might of monsters, the cunning of men, and the raw, overwhelming power of the elements themselves, each struggles to survive...

IN SAVAGE LANDS

In Savage Lands is a collection of 13 short stories for lovers of Heroic Fiction, Sword and Sorcery, and action-driven Fantasy.

Approximately 44,000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason E. Thummel
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465946478

Jason E. Thummel

Jason E. Thummel's work has appeared in Black Gate magazine, Flashing Swords, The Town Drunk, the anthologies Rage of the Behemoth and Magic and Mechanica, as well as in many other venues both online and in print. His contemporary flash fiction story "Contact," which was part of the charity project 100 Stories for Haiti, was later translated into Portuguese. He is the author of two hard-boiled, occult detective novels: The Spear of Destiny and Cult of Death, as well as a collection of 13 short stories of Heroic Fantasy titled In Savage Lands, the novella length collection The Harsh Suns, and the novel The Bladewitch.

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IN SAVAGE LANDS

Jason E. Thummel

Copyright © 2011 by Jason E. Thummel

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

All Rights Reserved.

August 2011

Smashwords Edition

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For Duncan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Stand in the Eye of the Needle

First appeared in Flashing Swords, Issue 10, Cyberwizard Productions, 2008

Dragon Hunter

The Spider's Web

The Dying Light of Day

Mortismagus

First appeared in the anthology Magic and Mechanica, Ricasso Press, 2009

Nargal of Zagg

The Fortunes of War: A Tale of Vladius and Stongi

The Homecoming of Brother Antonitus

The Devourer of the Shunned

Thorvold's Tale

The Gift of the Unspoken God

The Dreamer Wakes

Runner of the Hidden Ways

First appeared in the anthology Rage of the Behemoth, Rogue Blades Entertainment, 2009

A STAND IN THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Thorgrud heaved his sled against the icy grip of the fallen snow. Shards like glass rained down from above, as spectral trees groaned against the chill wind. Frantic tracks from someone’s recent passing ran ahead of him toward the village, still visible despite the drifting snow and ice. He pulled his furs more tightly about him and hurried on, knowing there was little time left.

The gray smudge of the Great Hall lay ahead and Thorgrud listened as the great north winds whistled through its eaves, singing the song of ice; the song of death. He trembled to hear it. Gone were the sounds that should mark the season—sounds of celebration, of children laughing, of song, dance and merriment. Instead, just silence and the sound of fabric snapping sharply in the breeze, as though counting out the bleak moments of life the village had left until its doom.

The tracks stopped short of the Great Hall, a silhouette of crumpled furs showing where a man had fallen. Thorgrud lifted the man from the snow and shook the life back into him, then shoved him toward the Hall. Without acknowledgment, the man gained his footing and stumbled ahead. Thorgrud followed closely, stopping outside a window where an ill-tended shutter gave a view of the inside.

Within, the fearful villagers breathed heavy in their labors, the desperate quiet that filled the Great Hall broken only by creaking leather as thongs were tightly wrapped to secure the few possessions and meager supplies that were heaped there. Their breath was visible in the chill, all too busy to tend the communal fire in the center of the vast room.

Timbers groaned as the man Thorgrud had helped violently threw open the doors. Threads of smoke from the dying fire twisted fiercely in the sudden draft and a startled communal intake of air sounded as the villagers turned to face him.

They’re almost upon us, croaked the man as he stumbled into the room, exhaustion threatening to send him crashing to the floor. One of the elders caught him under the arm and sat him down on a chest near the door.

How far? the elder asked. Panic made his voice a whisper that, despite the crowd, could be heard in the far corners of the hall.

I don’t know. Maybe a few hours, more or less. Thorgrud watched as someone pressed a water skin into the man’s hand and he greedily turned it to his lips, pulling hard to sate his maddening thirst.

A few hours, exclaimed a voice in shocked disbelief.

We have to leave now, someone barked as though the force of his voice alone would make it so.

We can’t leave now, answered another, we’ve not got enough supplies together. We’ll be lucky to make the bridge as it is, and without enough food... Best to stay here and barricade ourselves in.

Stay here and die, said another.

Thorgrud could sense the tension that had been building throughout the day and it suddenly loosed in a wave of voices that crashed over one another, volumes increasing as each shouted to be heard and recognized.

A sudden silence rippled through the chaos, its passage marked by hanging heads too shamed to look each other in the eyes. At the center of this stood the eldest of the villagers, his rheumy eyes gazing at each in turn. The staff he had been pounding for silence stopped as his weight shifted to it and a palsied hand moved slowly to encompass all.

We have shared too much to turn on each other now, his quavering voice began, only together can we make it through this. Warmth and food, leave the rest. Luxuries are of little good to the dead. But someone must stay to try to stall them. We will need more time.

Stall them? someone shouted.

Yes. You all know the place.

Thorgrud could see that they did: The Eye of the Needle, the only northern pass through the mountains into the vale. It was said that once a great stronghold had stood within the valley, defended by the narrow pass to the north and a crevice of indeterminate depth spanned by a bridge, to the south. Where the village now stood, there was little of that ancient civilization which remained, save large fertile fields and the occasional squared stone or small figurine. The magnificent stone bridge that once spanned the southern crag was gone—long ago fallen into the depths and replaced by a makeshift swinging bridge of hemp and wood.

Thorgrud listened as the muttering began again. Each tending to their own tasks, heads bowed, their whispered excuses riding to him through the frigid air. Some were too old, they said, others too young, and many had families that they could not leave.

Is there no one, then? the elder’s faltering voice croaked.

I will hold them, Thorgrud’s voice boomed from the entry.

All turned to regard him where he stood, his massive but aged and bent frame filling the doorway. His white hair whipped a frenzied dance in the wind as his gray eyes, set wide in his weathered face, flicked over each in turn.

Thorgrud watched the faces and the fear of the room washed over him in a nauseating rush. The more so that he understood it, edges of it gnawing at him even now. They would sit here and debate their own excuses, comfortable in the familiar environment, and all the talk would avail them nothing but death. He had seen it before, the fear that caused men to quibble over nothing in a comfortable tent rather than confront the evil that lurked outside its flaps. But evil always found a way in, and this place was doomed.

Thorgrud waited as the elder shuffled over to him, each impact of his staff like a great gong filling the silence. Standing opposite, the two regarded each other and Thorgrud noted a brief look of surprise on the old man’s face. Not only that Thorgrud lived, no doubt—for the elder must know that the menace that fast approached would have already overtaken Thorgrud’s home north of the valley—but also that he would volunteer to help them. Seeming satisfied by what he saw, the old man nodded grim acceptance.

But you’re so old, said a boy, Sig, as he pushed through the cluster of villagers that encircled the pair. He squinted and looked up at Thorgrud, his seven years showing in his lack of manner. How long can you hope to keep them?

Thorgrud glared at the child, but the flicker of a smile upon his stern face hinted at amusement. How long indeed?

I am Thorgrud, the Vulfbane, his gruff voice grew in power, and I will hold them long enough.

Hah, the boy’s incredulous laugh cut the strange silence that descended upon the room, the Vulfbane died years ago in the Southern Desert wastes. Killed by a dragon while saving Prince Grenyl’s sister. Even I know that.

I am the Vulfbane, Thorgrud said again, his voice low and menacing, an edge that sounded in the Great Hall louder than any shout and sent the boy stumbling backward.

Should he tell them, should he explain? Would they even believe that Grenyl had indeed sent him after the dragon, but not to save someone. It had been treachery meant to send him to his death, his popularity among the soldiers too great a threat to go unnoticed and unchecked.

But his armor had held—forged in the far north under the fiery night skies for a king of long ago, when gods still walked and warred upon the earth—and he had killed the beast. Returning wounded and weak to an abandoned camp to find that the sole occupants were his few loyal blood-friends, gutted and staked out as warning against him. It was an unmistakable threat to his family that remained at home that even if fortune had indeed favored him, he had best stay dead.

And so he had these many years—a wanderer, a soldier for hire, selling his sword to survive until the killing overwhelmed him, the smell of blood and death haunting his dreams, the faces of past slaughter tormenting his days.

He had fled it all—to the distant north—as far as any could go and still survive. The lonely weeks and months had added up to years, the time spent chiseling blocks of a rare stone for sale and trade to artisans in the south. And he had found some measure of peace at least, the demands of survival leaving little time for reflection on past deeds. But the Vulf hordes had grown restless in the bleak realms of the farthest northern reaches and so were pushing south once again, toward warmth and spoils and the meat that was man.

I am their bane, so named. Gather your things and go, I will meet them.

Thorgrud turned and trudged back into the wind whipped snows that danced dervish-like in the lightening gray skies of early morning. He did not care to linger, to suffer the silence of their disbelief or admiration. His past of violence had slumbered, but now it had awakened and come to claim him back into its blackened fold. He would meet it properly.

The crate that he had lashed to his pull-sled opened reluctantly, hinges coated with hoar-frost and rust protesting to the last. Whatever feelings of regret or sadness he had expected when he looked down at his old armor were not there. Instead, an almost giddy joy and fondness as though welcoming a long absent friend rushed through him.

Thorgrud gently rubbed the cold metal and smiled. We have been long apart, you and I.

The surrounding sky reflected on its mirrored surface, reminding him of how well it blended with things—reflected sun and sky, cloud and tree—an attribute that had saved his life on more than one occasion. The Glamour Skin they had called it, half in awe, half in jest.

None knew how Thorgrud had come to own the armor, and he would not tell, allowing all manner of fanciful tales to be spoken. Such was a young man’s desire to be legend. That he owned what was once considered myth—tales of which existed long before written history—and his fighting prowess had been the beginning of his fame, and the beginning of his end.

Thorgrud put the armor on, taking caution of the razor sharp ridges on the vambraces and greaves. Even the finely articulated gauntlets and boots had hardened metal ridges and needle like projections that, despite their delicate appearance, had never bent nor broken.

His hands flexed, remembering so many battles when his sword had fallen and still he had fought on, the armor his best weapon, slashing and gouging, ripping and tearing until he could scarce keep his feet, the men standing distant in awe of the sheer destructive violence of him, shouting his name in triumphant celebration. How he had reveled in it, then.

The breast and back plates would not fit and Thorgrud laughed. You’ve gone and got yourself a gut old man, he chided, too much of the good life, eh, hunched old thing that you are.

He took some leather strapping that had held the chest to the sled and slipped it through the buckles, removing the gauntlets to tie them. Thorgrud looked himself over and did not like what he saw. Too many gaps, too much exposure; it was a younger man’s armor, not suited to