Chapter XIX:
Tidal Wave
Ring after ring passed under the wings of the ghost, each ring swirling with more ferocity than its bordering neighbor, each ring filled with hundreds, thousands, millions of souls unseen but heard by Kurt under the maelstrom’s surface.
Those visible were pinned or chained to slabs like that of Carolus, the waves drowning them continuously between trident stabs from the undersea skeletons.
Peltwarder’s descent quickened.
They came upon the stronghold, far tinier than Rammbock’s Castle or even Carolus’s Chateau.
Landing outside its gate, twenty-so men in the same quickore armor as Kurt lowered their hand cannons as Peltwarder’s voice rang over the clouds: “HAIL, MEN OF RAMMBOCK.”
The armored men saluted with three fingers at their heart. “Rammbock’s Errandghost, hail,” said the tallest of the men,“You have brought a new man to us…a brother?”
“This is Kurt Eisenforst, the heir to the Weever’s Eye," said Peltwarder.
“General Ormsvard’s pupil? It is an honor, sir.” The men saluted Kurt.
“A worthy greeting for this man,” spoke a man on a black horse.
“…General Ormsvard,” said Kurt looking up at John, mounted on Canute.
“Are you ready for battle, soldier?” said John curtly.
“Yes, General,” said Kurt saluting.
The tall man said to Kurt,“We’ve been waiting for that damned Orbaulker to finally attack, but apart from a few aerial strikes from the last of his pulver-aircraft, he has been hesitant to try anything in a closer proximity.”
Kurt shrugged,“Cautious or patient or unable to?”
The tall man waved a hand,“Certainly he is able, but his men have all but destroyed each other. The last of the ettin princelings, the most powerful of the ettinland, consider themselves untouchable gods and goddesses and refuse to go to war.
They live decadently in cities along the Eldermark, ignoring their conscriptions as you would guess. No one tells a 'superlative god' what to do. Those that have fought are mostly men, well, recently apegifted men, still chasing more exorbitant bodily modifications.”
“I see...I killed a few dozen of that type before I killed Verity, the ettin commandant,” said Kurt, looking back out to the red waters.
“Verity? The Herrenahausen-west Countess?”
“Yes..” said Kurt.
The tall man shook his head,“I knew only that she was missing for many years. I feared that she might have become an ettin...she was once known as the most beautiful of women.”
“But she’s dead now," said Kurt, " and the ettins haven’t got their commander, and now what...we just wait for Orbaulker to attack? That’s the strategy?”
“Without the Weever, the natural enemy of Orbaulker’s kind, there are few opportunities to directly strike him or the source of his essence without leaving entering the Eldermark.”
“The source?” repeated Kurt.
Peltwarder responded: “Yes: the ultimate source of corruption. As vaighlings are children of Orbaulker, so is he the child of the Unghost. Orbaulker's kind were once a peaceful race of proto-man, forest dwellers, though with many predators.
A genius in their ranks became acquainted with the Unghost who then granted him powers that turned him into the most dangerous predator of the forest. That predator was the ancestor of all vaighlings.
They exist now only to serve as a bridge between men and ettins and the Unghost, and for the purpose of this war, as another puppet of the Unghost who has no true body of his own. If we can ignore Orbaulker the puppet, we will, but we must be prepared for any attack, and so the orders from the King are to hold.”
Kurt looked out over the Eldermark and to the grinning face of Orbaulker, his eyes like yellow searchlights cast onto the island.
A few soldiers carried a white robed body, processing towards the Castle’s main gate.
“They’ll bury Uthu Quartertongue inside the castle,” said John,“He led Grimnar and Embla on the outskirts of the Wasteland while the war raged on all fronts. Good man.”
“And what about Rammbock?” asked Kurt.
“Pardon?” said John.
“Rammbock…where was he? Where was he when they were trapped by the wastelings? For Grimnar? Why didn’t he save them?”
John scratched his head.
“In all truth, the King remains an enigma to me…I understand your concern…but understand that war needs a hierarchy of officers to function. The King sends others to assists his commands even when he is not clearly present…how he assisted Grimnar and Embla I don’t know, but he never abandoned them…”
“But Verity? My father? They are in the Eldermark now…trapped with no reprieve possible…I don’t understand it…”
John shook Canute’s reigns. “He is now in the castle…speak to him, he will listen.”
“……do I want to speak to him? I have seen so much darkness, John. Death and torture…he should come out here…offer all of us an apology!”
A sturdy old hand smacked Kurt across the face.
The boy inside Kurt saw a man he had forgotten.
A man behind dark sunglasses inside a cramped red lit room, a knife in one hand, his little ear in the other.
John was incensed.
“You speak with pride. Hold your tongue before it injures you further.”
“Yes, General.”
John rode off towards the castle, a look of disappointment on his face.
That look wounded Kurt more than John’s striking him.
He took off from the castle grounds and walked down to the quiet shores of the firth.
He turned away from the Bloodfirth, looking further away from the Eldermark and towards what was recognizable to Kurt as his own world: the great white mountains suffering that early winter, forests snug in the frost, and bronze dusty desert and valleys serving those hallowed hills of his homeland.
It made him ill.
It was no longer his land, no longer his reality.
He was ordered to the Eldermark front, to the watchful eye of Rammbock and Orbaulker.
Skipping rocks into the water, he stared up at the giant face in the sky.
The face stared back.
“Orbaulker, what do you want? Huh?”
The face contorted. Its hideous smile turned into an arrogant but annoyed face.
“You know what I want; what I need, Kurt. Stop all these games; claim your crown. Your father is right, Rammbock is just a man, a fallible stupid man. Take off that armor, it’s weighing you down. Make yourself your own king, and strike back at those who make a mockery of you.”
Kurt chucked another rock.
“Kurt Eisenforst?” The voice resonated in Kurt’s ear like few others.
No longer did Orbaulker speak telepathically.
This new voice reminded him of cold-blooded fear, a deep mortal fear, but then anger, hatred and wrath.
He turned round to face the speaker.
Three faces greeted him, two dead, blackened skulls, and in the middle, a bright handsome face, the hair blonde, tall and clad in quickore armor.
“Groomslayer?” said Kurt.
“Well, yes, but no, I don’t go by that name anymore…I’m just... Erich.”
“Just Erich? You killed my friends, Just Erich…killed John…whole counties under your heel…you piece of filth…”
“Kurt, please, I wish to offer myself in any way to your service…I know I have done horrible things to you…your friends...I suffered for a few thousand years in the Eldermark. I walked with Uthurs, I did penance. I walked with Grimnar...Embla. Please forgive me…please.”
The Groomslayer fell on one knee and then face first in total prostration at Kurt’s feet.
Orbaulker spoke again, “He killed your mother too, Kurt. Your sisters, during the taboo smashing war.”
“You…you killed my mother…my sisters?”
“He did...Did the worst to them. Pulverized them.”
“I...I don't know...but I was an evil beast… Forgive me," said Erich Jr.
Kurt nodded, biting his lip till the blood dripped upon Erich’s back. He tossed Deathbrand to the ground.
The feeling of the icy stab when Carolus brushed neck vest returned.
He reached into collar, pulling out a piece of pulver, sharp at the edges; a knife, a gift, from his father.
Raising it against the red sun grinning face of Orbaulker he drove the pulver down into the Groomslayer’s neck.
+++++
Kurt pushed the shard with the full force of his weight.
It sliced his hands, naked and unguarded by quickore.
Still, he drove the knife, a shard from Carolus’ slab, into the chain wrapped neck of the Groomslayer.
Squeezing, cursing, the pulver melted into his palms.
Where it had dripped onto the Groomslayer, it turned to a powder.
The neck was unscathed.
“I am sorry,” said the Groomslayer tears in his eyes.
Kurt groaned. His hands had darkened.
His eyes too had become the color of the pulver.
His thoughts fled from that place and time. He was tangled within a throng of men and women in a writhing frenzy.
Etzel was there, interlocked with him.
Verity was not far behind.
All three were umbral, two-dimensional shadow puppets on the wall of a fire-filled cavern.
He looked around for a sign of relief from the.
“Remember this.” The red vested errandghost spoke from somewhere beyond that tableau.
Kurt observed himself in a long queue.
Apegift booths within obelisks, dozens, lodged on an sporting arena's turf field, attended by a frenzied folk, dancing, crying out in their open displays of passions. Into the booth he went. He received the task, the apegift: “Slay the one who bothered you. Become King of Kings.”
A pale hand touched Kurt's scalp. “And no man shall ever bother you again.”
Kurt bowed his head,and whispered. “Make it so.”
“It is so,” spoke the Master of the Booth.
Kurt returned to the castle. Back to the Groomslayer who had gotten to his feet, and to the other soldiers surrounding him, arquebuses raised. The Weever’s Eye lay on the ground.
Red tears leaked from its steely ducts.
“Kurt Eisenforst!” sounded a mustachioed general,“explain yourself!!”
Kurt felt a chill internally.
Icewild bellowed in his ear, blasting a hundred miles away.
Orbaulker spoke to him:
“These apes are going to war with the last of the men free of spirit and intellect."
Though his great red face had vanished from the sky it spoke as if its lips were pressed to Kurt’s ear. “You must answer to King Rammbock,” said the general.
Kurt cried out. “I will not!…he will answer to me! I only wanted to do what was best for my house, my home. And it was all taken from me. The Groomslayer took it. Now he works alongside Rammbock? Treachery, stupidity, we all know what evils he has loosed on our friends and brothers. Why take him as a brother? I shall not. Never.”
A black horse galloped towards the soldiers.
John dismounted Canute and pushed through the soldiers. “What are you doing, Kurt?” His face was full of sorrow, as if the corpse of a child lay out before him.
“I am doing what you should have done, John. Slaying the Groomslayer… avenging you!”
“Damn fool…” said John without humor. “You believe that is what I sought? I was brought back to life, that is vengeance enough. The Groomslayer was not one man, but three. The first, chose death, and the second was even more corrupt, but the third was given a choice to leave that cycle behind him and has accepted that call. Rammbock's call. Now he wears the other men’s corpses as a reminder of what he might become, but he is a greater friend than most, and I pity his predecessors that now rot in the Eldermark Pit.”
“Pity? You know their crimes.”
“I pity them, Kurt, I pity them as I pity their victims.”
“You pity the victims? Never took you to be a bleeding-heart…This beast killed my mother! My sisters!!!”
“He did not! Damn fool, your hatred has blinded you. Erich Herrenhausen Senior killed them, yes. But his son, this man, Erich Jr, Adatmen, the third head of the Groomslayer lived in splendor and fleshly pleasure during the entirety of that awful war. Was he apathetic to their murder and the deaths of many others? Yes. A hero? No, but he was as passive as they come and has now proven himself as a faithful brother in arms. Kurt, let me help you before you follow Azza into the Pit…I’ll take you to see Rammbock now. He can purify you from the pulver poisoning your body and soul.”
A voice from behind the crowd spoke solemnly.
“Indeed, you will need to be taken to the angelic smith again, there you will be made anew.”
Clad in brown robes, his white hair and beard neck-length, his eyes kind, but unwavering and stormy in color and disposition, the solemn speaker stretched out a hand to Kurt.
Rammbock had arrived.
“Kurt, you are not too far gone to be taken by Orbaulker and his Master. Yes, you accepted his apegift. You should never have spoken with him, nor agreed to his terms. But you are near me now, I have seen the worst of him. I have heard his foul speech and how it needles the heart and tests the men of firmest resolve. I see him now hiding, like a serpent ready to strike in his cowardice.”
“Cowardice?” said Kurt. “It was bravery to enter that booth! To receive Azza’s gift for mankind. Now I am close to being complete, now I am a true man. Never to be bothered again!”
“The Weever's Eye weeps for you, Kurt. We all do. Let me heal you.”
Orbaulker whispered: “Take my body, take my mantel. Fight those molesting you, show them what true confidence is. Rammbock is only a man…I killed him once, I should know.”
Kurt clawed at the quickore armor upon him. He rent the seams, the torso, the sabatons, and finally his hat. John’s hat. He remained, naked, covered in dark weaving veins, pulsing, contracting and wriggling.
Orbaulker revealed himself his physical form then alongside him.
The face, the same cold human visage, arrogant, sinister, but the body was like a mound of many arachnidial limbs attached to a troop of gorillas, chaotic in his anatomy, a blur of motion his presence.
Raising up Deathbrand, Rammbock thrust it into the writhing gut of the vaighling king.
The limbs contracted, folded and swayed.
He disappeared, then reappeared.
He was like a moon, an eclipse high in the sky, the sun at noon, and then a great black winged errandghost casting thunderbolts upon the castle.
“I am as a mountain, as an ocean, as death itself. I am untouchable. Fear me or die,” said the creature.
The soldiers scattered about the castle, firing cannons, arquebuses, quickore rounds exploding as Orbaulker assaulted the fortress with his thundering vomit and gore.
Kurt had fled. He could not suffer the presence of Rammbock any longer.
In his nakedness he swam across the Bloodfirth, till it met the Eldermark Maelstrom again, the first ring, where his father was interned.
He failed him, failed his father’s task.
But he had his freedom; freedom from the eye and the watching things and the armor weighing him down.
Fire rained from the heavens, the great mass of the vaighling king speaking to him from afar: “So long as I live in you, I shall never die. Flee to the Wildermark, to the Temple of Azza. Become great there, fulfill your destiny.”
Kurt watched as the great body of the vaighling finally succumbed to the blows of Rammbock’s Deathbrand.
He fell into the maelstrom, setting forth a tidal wave of marrow and viscera that flooded the earth.
But his vestige had wormed into Kurt’s being; and he viscerally understood, that the vaighlings, that Orbaulker, were united to Azza’s spirit and Azza’s will.
And thus, Kurt did too as his master willed.