Chapter VI:
Caro
Canute stood as still as stone, his pale eyes transfixed to a place only the dead may know. At his side, Kurt listened for any word of solace or comfort outside of Man’s Earth. The Weever spoke not, neither did those ghouls that so often afflicted him. Whatever Canute could see, Kurt would see soon enough, once Autumn turned its leaf. Until then, he stood beside his dead horse, shooting off into the sky within a Subohemian aircraft.
They were fast approaching Mockwitch Peak. The aircraft pulsed further through the night, till a command was made from Embla’s lips to land. They descended into a sea of pine, crisp and stinging of both scent and needle. Quietly, they lowered into the mountaintop woods finding themselves in a clearing, the bright moon beaming upon them. They settled for a second before Verity’s bodyguard withdrew the Tooth and determined its direction towards Verity. “It points to where my prize is.” Embla kicked off her boots and reclined, yawning. “Wake me up when it’s done, boys.”
Kurt held out the string Todteld handed him. “The Quickore thread...that errandghost said we could prevent our being separated with it.” “Like this?…” said Embla reaching for it. She wound it about her wrist, then to Kurt’s, Etzel’s and finally around a metallic, narrow beam within the ship. “Now we’re stuck together,” said Kurt. “Unless an errandghost’s bite severs it...”
“Any trouble and I’ll yank you both back in the ship,” said Embla. Kurt, the Bodyguard and Canute exited the ship, beginning their trek towards Verity and the home of Mockwitch, the thread tying them together invisible to their mortal senses.
+++++
Thunder crashed on that dry eve.
Canute floated more than galloped, Kurt and the Bodyguard behind him both riding on his soil smeared saddle. The Weveer's Tooth pointed in Etzel’s palm like a compass, twitching, spinning, turning backwards and sideways. “Where is he...” said the Bodyguard.
“He?” asked Kurt.
“Yes. He. Mockwitch. The Tooth seeks out ettins...and the closest in the vicinity keeps moving.”
“Is it broken?” said Kurt observing the fidgeting device in Etzel’s hand.
“Of course not!…This is no machine, Eisenforst. Perhaps the beast is shifting between worlds.”
“Maybe we’re being played with,” said Kurt shaking his head.
“Verity will be saved no matter what...these ettins and vaighlings think they’ve set us up, think they’re so clever...”
The Tooth straightened out eastwards.
An hour passed, and still no trace of Verity or the fiend holding her was detected.
The riders too would have missed the huge castle in their midst cloaked by night if it were not for the sudden thunderstorm: lightning illuminated the purple sky, a thunder bolt striking a crooked tower 30 storeys high.
The Chateau was carved from the granite of the mountain.
Its hundreds of windows glowed with a deep blue light.
At its front, a three storey gate of a violet-colored metal bore two initials:
C.E.
The Bodyguard gestured towards the woods. “There…there’s something moving in the trees.”
He dismounted, rushing forwards.
Canute stood still.
“Canute: move!” said Kurt spurring the dead horse’s sides.
But, he was pained to admit, it was no longer his horse. It obeyed a new, dead master.
Canute carried on, away from the Bodyguard, floating above the earth, veering off their path and into a thick stretch of pine and rock.
He abruptly halted.
They hovered within a small circle of trees.
The Weever’s words at the last meeting rang in his pulver ear:
Behold! At its peak is rooted a slayer made of Quickore; its strike is like a bite of mine. Ettins may not approach it without trembling: The wolf’s head saber Deathbrand!
A dark pole stretched up from the circle, it’s tip wolf-headed, a seven flamed candelabra spouting from the wolf’s lips.
“Deathbrand... Ettinslayer,” spoke a low voice from behind the trees.
A bald man, muscular and wearing a wife-beater tanktop, baggy trousers and black round spectacles stepped in front of the fiery pole. “Junior…Carolus Jr. It really is you, kid. Hellfire…” Carolus Eisenforst’s two ears were jet pulver-black, as were his arms and legs.
“You like the new ears? Arms? And my heart too, I've got a blackheart... I’m just like you, kid.”
Kurt looked upon his father with a swelling rage. He spoke lowly, his eyes wolven, locked on his father.
Canute floated around the perimeter of the grove, uninterested in the awkward reunion of father and son.
The dead horse moved upon the wolf’s head saber, then circled it.
“You can’t come closer to that thing, Junior. It will burn you alive…trust me. Trust your pa-pa.”
Take it...Wield it. It is yours.
A voice spoke in Kurt’s pulver ear. He had never heard the voice, so calm, confident and charitable.
“You don’t listen…I told you-” Carolus hurled Kurt back into the trees.
He crashed into the needles scraping, scratching his skin. Blood dripped from his mouth.
Canute stood tall beside Deathbrand as Kurt hung from the tree. “-told you not to get closer! Now, boy, you are gonna listen to me now and listen always. I am the master of this grove here. Me and Mockwitch: you know Mockwitch? He gives me power the Subozos never could. But you want to play with Subohemians? With their airplanes and even that Verity von Herrnenhausen? Do you know what’s in store for her?- It ain’t pretty, no, it’s downright nast-ay.”
Carolus smiled. "So,what’s it going to be? The Von Herrenhausens? A ghost horse? Or your Pa-pa?”
Carolus drove a fist in his son’s belly.
Kurt fell prostrate onto his palms.
Wiping the blood from his teeth he said,“I'll take the horse.”
Carolus shook his head. “You ain’t been whooped as a youngin. That’s my fault. But it ain’t too late to learn a brat how to act proper.”
Pa-pa popped open a black blade from a maroon handle.
It was a blade Kurt recognized well;that all of Carolus’ boys recognized well.
+++++
The Weever’s Tooth shivered, drawing blood from Etzel’s tight grip.
Verity’s body was in his midst. The Tooth pointed to an old pine, lofty and dark under the thunderheads.
From the tree’s branches emerged a figure, a terrible unthing darker than the night.
It was as large as a grizzly, bearing a heavy gown of fur, thick and full of pine needles. Its upper half was quite human looking; of an exceptional and beautiful form, the flesh a pale blue and the face and bald head the same color though smeared red in blood.
“Welcome," it said.
The Bodyguard said nothing.
The creature, a vaighling, smiled its toothless mouth and then, from its furry loins pulled out a scimitar.
“Stronger than pulver...made of old ettin bone,” said the vaighling. “It can slay even the mightiest sorts....”
The vaighling cast the scimitar to the needle matted ground. “Bodyguard, you swore an oath. To my father, to Orbaulker; to your country; but you have yet to carry it out…do not pretend yourself to be a spotless maid. You have tasted much blood for our cause.”
The Bodyguard picked up the scimitar. “You want an oath? You want to hear what I swore to the Unghost? The conditions of my apegift?"
"That I know as my master and I are one!" said the vaighling.
"I will kill the flesh of Carolus Eisenforst. I will kill son in the name of the Unghost, so was your oath. But instead, you slew my brother Crowbaulker. I, Murderbaulker on behalf of my father, have given you a second chance. Do not squander our mercy. Your beloved shall never be one with you again with such treachery schemed.”
“Where is Mockwitch?” asked the Bodyguard.
"He is near." said Murderbaulker.
"Where?"
“Here,ape. Here! Do you fear what he may do to you! No...no, you fear another...yes, you fear the doctor...
Then hurry! Kill Eisenforst, claim your prize. Are you ready to complete your apegift??”
“Not until you show me where she is...that you can guarantee her body will be mine again.”
From the vaighling’s fur tumbled out the shape of a young woman.
The Bodyguard fell to body’s side, holding it tight.
“Go,” said Murderbaulker. “Else that scimitar you grasp shall fall upon the head of your prize!…That sword has a mind of its own, you should know. Ettins, even their bones, never die...oh, they never die..."
+++++
The fires of Deathbrand rose in swirling pillars over the pines.
Kurt had drawn his arquebus.
“You know the damned thing can’t dent me,” said Carolus. "Those firecreacker bullets are like popped corn kernels against my skin."
Carolus grabbed the arquebus. Its pulver rounds exploded, Kurt shielded only by Carolus’s deflecting hand.
“Now, you’re here for a reason, for second chances. No: third, fourth, you’ve had every chance. I wanted to make you something, boy; but you blew it.”
Carolus smiled. He kneed Kurt in the gut, sending him face forwards. He picked him up again, slapping his chest and arms, cutting him open with each strike.
“That’s a whoopin’ boy. But…you still ain’t learned.”
Carolus pointed the knife towards Kurt’s chest.
“You’re mine. You’ve always belonged to me. The Ettins? The Herrenhausens? That old cowboy, John Ormsvard? No. You’re mine.”
He tossed Kurt’s black hat from his head like a discus into the trees.
Kurt spat blood in Carolus’s face, spattering his black spectacles red.
“Aright, boy. Here. Show you what.”
Carolus removed his glasses. Nothing lay behind them but two pin-sized holes and a thin green light beaming from them both into Kurt's. “Up,” he said, his eyes still fixed to Kurt's, unblinking.
Kurt stood up
"Sit."
Kurt sat.
“Roll over.”
Kurt did the same, in agony.
“Now…carve my name into your face.”
Kurt grimaced, lurching forward.
“You do as Pa-pa,says, this is hi-tech…this, kid, is what I’ve sacrificed for. To charm and enchant. No one ever says no to Dominus Deus Carolus.” Kurt gripped the knife pulling it close. “Go ahead; write your Pa-pa's whole name. Learnin' ya the basics now.”
On Kurt's right cheek he cut deep a “C.” Then: “A” “R” “O” “-“ The “L” was cut short- Carolus moaned.
The green lights of his semi-eyes faded away; he struggled to breathe.
“You----I know you....you’re that he-she.”
A scimitar was stuck through his chest, his fat purple heart pulsing at the blade’s tip.
Blood spewing from his lips, he shivered as the blade twisted.
“Eisenforst, I’ve taken your flesh,” said the Bodyguard thrusting the scimitar back out from Carolus. Canute circled around Deathbrand, snorting. His body soft from his father’s blows, Kurt limped to Todteld’s horse.
Take it. Take it.
He gripped Deathbrand. From its wolf’s mouth, its seven candles spat seven flames like seven orange geysers.
As if the mountain itself vomited it up, the blade shot skywards, nearly as tall as he.
He held the great sword with reverence and awe pointing its tip toward his father.
Carolus still moved, muttering. “Sorry...just...let me go...I’ll leave you two...just...go....”
Verity’s bodyguard raised the scimitar over Carolus' worming body.
“Galvan! Let Todteld claim him! He’ll be dead soon enough!”
The Bodyguard stared coldly into Kurt’s stern face before letting the scimitar drop onto Carolus’ neck.
Kurt shook his head. “He was still my father...”
"You ungrateful swine. I just saved your worthless ass,” said the Bodyguard wiping Carolus’ blood off his ettin-bone blade.
In the still of the grove, Kurt buried Carolus as the Bodyguard sped off into the woods, gripping the Weever's Tooth.
All the while, three little shadows watched them, puzzled and afraid.
Another person in red garments and a beautiful face consoled the shaking shadows. “It’s alright, children...remember, why you are here. Do not fear the dark, but only what darkness you may wreak yourselves.”
Chapter VII: The Orettin and the Bodyguard