Outside Fort Abercrombie, Grakk'Thor's sixty warriors, moments ago charging in formation, were now stumbling wrecks.

  Men swayed in their saddles, eyes bulged, bloodshot and unfocused, seeing terrors only they could perceive. Ponies fared little better. They trembled, legs buckling without warning, sending riders crashing into the snow.

  "Thul zhog vak! Vok na dras!" Grakk'Thor shrieked.

  His head snapped towards a commotion nearby. A young warrior had fallen from his pony. He thrashed in the snow, back arched, fingers clawing at his own throat. A guttural sound tore from his chest as muscles locked in a spasm. He went still.

  Two warriors nearby stared at their fallen comrade, then at Grakk'Thor.

  "NA!" Grakk'Thor's shriek froze them in place. "Gash vak thul! Zhog vak khet!"

  He lurched forward.

  The obsidian blade appeared in his free hand. He stood over the body of the fallen warrior and plunged the blade deep into the chest cavity.

  Squelch.

  He ripped upwards, exposing steaming entrails. Gasps and a few retches sounded from the surrounding warriors. Ignoring it all, Grakk'Thor plunged both hands into the cavity. He tore out the heart. Next came the liver. He held the organs aloft, blood cascading down his arms.

  "Zhog! Khet vak thul! Khet vak gorrash! Gash vak dras! Thrak vak Vel Mokthul!"

  He flung the organs onto the snow before him and slammed the bloody blade in between. Drawing symbols in spilled blood across his own forehead and sunken cheeks, he began a guttural chant.

  The organs on the snow began to steam with a dark red vapor that coiled upwards.

  The vapor coalesced above the gore, swirling faster, tighter, eventually became a small vortex centered on Grakk'Thor. It formed a sphere the size of a man's head and pulsed like a diseased heart.

  The warriors watched as the sphere throbbed.

  Grakk'Thor's chant rose to a shriek. He pointed his rattle at two men barely clinging to their saddles nearby.

  "Vok! Vok ul zhog! Vok threk nalak! Grul zhog! Khet vak thurm!"

  The warriors he indicated – one adult man coughing black bile, another a youth whose skin had turned grey – barely had time for their eyes to widen in understanding before Grakk'Thor slashed his obsidian knife through the air in their direction.

  He didn't touch them.

  The blood sphere pulsed. Two thick tendrils, like liquid night, lashed out. They struck the chests of the designated warriors. Their bodies seized immediately.

  Their mounts whinnied in terror as life sucked out of them and flowed back along the tendrils, feeding the pulsing sphere. The tendrils retracted, leaving two hollow husks that slumped over their ponies' necks.

  The blood sphere swelled, pulsing faster, its dark light casting shadows across the horrified faces of the warband.

  Grakk'Thor didn't pause. He pointed again, selecting three more warriors on the brink of collapse. Again, the dark tendrils lashed out. Three more lives were consumed. The orb grew larger still.

  Six lives extinguished to fuel it.

  Now, the Wise One swept his rattle in a wide arc over the remaining warriors – those still upright.

  "Thrakka vak!"

  He slammed the butt of his bone rattle onto the frozen ground. A wave of crimson energy pulsed outward and washed over them all.

  The effect was instantaneous.

  Warriors who had been pale and trembling straightened in their saddles as if pulled by strings. Crimson flooded back into their faces as the glaze of agony in their eyes vanished, replaced by a hard light devoid of anything human.

  "Thrak vak ul! Gash vak zhog! Morvak! Gash vak khor! Thul nak vok dras-gul VETH!"

  The warriors turned their ponies as one as they kicked their mounts into a gallop.

  No more staggering.

  ———

  "Lieutenant?" Bjorn broke the spell. "Orders?"

  Leif snapped back to the moonlit pass. He scanned the ragged column stretched along the rocky trail behind him. One hundred and sixty fighting men. Veterans of the Talons as well as green recruits. Frostholme’s desperate, about another hundred or so, trailed the main force.

  "FORM UP!" Leif’s voice ripped through the stillness.

  Movement erupted.

  Thirty of the original Talon veterans who had fought with the trolls formed a double rank just ahead of the main mass. Shields locked, spears lowered at an angle. Leif positioned himself just behind the center of their line with his heirloom blade held point-down.

  Behind the Talons came sixty new recruits. They formed four ragged ranks, each man carrying a spear – some proper infantry models, many just sharpened poles or hunting spears. A forest of spear points extended over the heads of the Talons in front.

  Following them were sixty men - veterans, new recruits, and peasants - armed with a motley assortment of ranged weapons – some heavy windlasses, some light hunting cranequins, a few arbalests. They stood behind the spearmen, frantically winding.

  Behind them, were about hundred men and even a few sturdy women. They formed a ragged semi-circle behind the crossbowmen and extending back along the flanks of the pass. They carried whatever they could find: splintered doors ripped from Frostholme’s abandoned shacks, heavy barrel staves bound together with rope, sections of broken wagon siding.

  "Steady!" Leif scanned the terrified faces behind their wooden walls. "Hold the line! Hold for your homes! Hold for Frostholme! HOLD FOR ABERCROMBIE!"

  A ragged, uncertain cheer rose, swallowed quickly by the oppressive silence of the snow-laden pines and the distant, growing vibration beneath their feet. The scout hadn’t needed to report the sound. It was coming.

  Thud.

  A pause.

  Thud-thud.

  Pause.

  Thud-thud-thud.

  The rhythm accelerated, a deep, ominous drumbeat resonating through the frozen earth, up through the soles of boots. Faster than any pony should move. Louder than beasts should sound.

  "They come," Bjorn stated.

  Thunder.

  The moonlight gleamed on polished horn helmets and bared teeth. Shaggy ponies surged forward. In the moonlight, their eyes shone with a sickly crimson light.

  "CROSSBOWMEN! PRESENT! AIM LOW! AIM AT THE MASS!"

  Sixty weapons swung down.

  The Skarl line surged closer. A hundred yards. Eighty. They aimed directly at the center of Leif's fragile shield wall.

  "LOOSE!"

  THWACK! THWACK-THWUNK! ZZZZZING!

  Skarl ponies shrieked. Three riders in the front rank tumbled backwards, bolts sprouting from chests or necks, their crimson-lit eyes snapping blank. Two ponies went down screaming, legs snapped. The charge wavered for a split second as the fallen became obstacles.

  But it was only a ripple. The Skarls behind simply leapt the thrashing bodies or smashed through. The crimson eyes fixed forward. Fifty yards.

  "SECOND RANK! LOOSE IF YOU CAN!" Leif yelled. A ragged second volley flew. More ponies stumbled. Another rider fell. But the Skarl mass didn't slow. It absorbed the losses like water soaking into sand. Forty yards.

  Leif could see the individual snarling mouths, the froth on the ponies' bits.

  "Hold yer doors, ye daft beggars!" Bjorn screamed at the shield-bearers behind the crossbows. "Get ready to cover!"

  Thirty yards.

  "SHIELDS UP!" Leif screamed at the peasant wall behind him. "ARROWS! INCOMING!"

  The first deadly hiss cut the air. A swarm. Dozens of arrows arced high from the rear ranks of the Skarl charge. They blotted out the moon for a split second before descending like iron rain.

  THUD-THUD-THUD! CRACK! THUNK!

  The sound was sickening. Arrows slammed into doors, splintering wood. They thudded into barrels, some punching through. They struck the heavy shields of the Talons with dull impacts. But many found softer targets.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A woman shrieked behind Leif as an arrow punched through her barrel lid and into her shoulder. She stumbled back, dropping her shield. A man holding a door section gasped, an arrow buried in his thigh. Another cried out, clutching an arm suddenly pierced. Wood splintered everywhere. The shield line buckled as men instinctively flinched or crumpled. Gaps appeared.

  "CLOSE UP! CLOSE UP!" Leif bellowed. "HOLD THOSE SHIELDS!"

  Twenty yards. The Skarls lowered their own short spears, wicked points aimed. Their ponies, foam-flecked and eyes rolling wildly, strained forward with unnatural speed.

  Ten yards.

  The world narrowed to the oncoming wall of fur, horn, and gleaming steel.

  "NOW!" Bjorn roared, hefting his hammer.

  But the impact never came.

  Like water flowing around a boulder, the wave of Skarl riders veered with grace. The eastern flank peeled left, the western right, galloping parallel to Leif’s formation. Not even breaking stride, they flowed past the bristling spear points just feet away.

  "FLANKING!" Bjorn bellowed. "THEY’RE HITTING THE REAR!"

  Panic ripped through the ranks. Recruits lunged awkwardly but stabbed only empty air. The Talons tried to turn shields towards the flanks, but they were too densely packed. The formation buckled as men stumbled into each other.

  Borvak, the shaman's champion, was leading the western flank. He raised his short hornbow, nocked an arrow in one fluid motion, and drew.

  Others followed him in unison.

  THWIPP-THWIPP-THWIPP!

  A swarm of arrows hissed through the twilight air. Thuds, screams, and splintering wood erupted. A peasant holding a splintered door cried out as an arrow punched through the timber and into his hands. Another dropped a barrel stave.

  "SHIELDS UP IN THE REAR!" Leif screamed. "CLOSE RANKS! CLOSE—"

  But it was chaos. The rear ranks dissolved. Peasants dropped their shields, scrambling for cover behind fallen bodies. Crossbowmen abandoned their heavy weapons, fleeing towards the center. The carefully constructed box formation collapsed inward, men pressing against each other in terror, shields tilting wildly. Gaps appeared like bleeding wounds in their defense.

  Borvak wheeled his pony effortlessly, he pointed his nocked arrow towards the collapsing center where recruits milled in panic.

  THWIPP!

  His arrow took a recruit in the temple. The young man crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

  "GORRASH!"

  Another volley lashed the milling crowd. Screams redoubled. The Talon shield wall, trying desperately to reorient, was peppered with arrows clanging off helmets and shields. A veteran grunted, staggering as an arrow punched through his leather greave.

  "FORM SQUARE!" Leif bellowed. "FACING OUT! SPEARS LEVEL! SHIELDS OVERLAP! NOW!"

  Slowly, shields were overlapped, creating a bristling hedgehog of spear points facing outwards.

  Borvak raised his hornbow sideways. This time, instead of another wave of arrows, about twenty riders peeled off. They kicked their ponies into a gallop towards the western edge of the pass where boulders offered cover.

  "They’ll get above us!" Bjorn gasped.

  Leif’s heart hammered against his ribs. If the Skarls gained the high ground… "Bjorn! Take ten Talons! Stop them!"

  Bjorn slammed his hammer onto his shield.

  "YOU! YOU! YOU! WITH ME!" He pointed to veterans nearby and bulled his way through the square towards the western rocks, his chosen men following grimly.

  Leif realized that he just made a terrible mistake.

  As Bjorn’s group broke formation, Borvak gave another sharp command. The main Skarl force surged forward again. Not a direct charge, but a rapid trot, closing the distance rapidly, arrows already nocked.

  "BRACE!" Leif yelled.

  The Skarls halted fifty yards out. Fifty bows snapped up and loosed as one.

  THWIPP!

  The arrows slammed into the shields with a sickening drumbeat. Screams echoed as shafts found gaps – that ten men died in this one wave, except for Bjorn. Before the crossbowmen could return the favor, the Skarls wheeled and galloped backwards.

  "BASTARD WOLVES!" Harkin spat blood from a split lip. "They’re bleedin’ us dry!"

  Leif Fenrir stood behind the shuddering shield wall of the Talons.

  Damn. It was worse than anything he'd imagined. Did the poison not work? How did they–

  "Lieutenant!" Harkin’s rasp cut through the moans. "Look! The shaman! He’s doing something! Like... like some sort of bloody storm!"

  Leif followed his gaze. Past the milling ponies and the glowing-eyed warriors, near a cluster of stunted pines, stood Grakk’Thor.

  The shaman was half-crouched on his pony. Above his head pulsed the crimson vortex Harkin had seen. It was the size of a wagon wheel now, swirling like congealed blood shot through with veins of utter blackness.

  "He’s holding them up!" Harkin spat. "Like strings on a puppet! That thing… it’s feeding them!"

  Leif's eyes snapped to the cluster of crossbowmen huddled behind the shield wall.

  "YOU!" he bellowed. "See the shaman? The figure in furs near the trees with that… that red cloud above him?"

  The man's eyes darted towards the distant figure. "Aye, Lieutenant!"

  "Put a bolt through him!" Leif’s voice was a whip crack. "Aim true! Nothing else matters! KILL THE SHAMAN!"

  The crossbowman's hands shook, but he obeyed. He dropped to one knee, bracing the heavy crossbow against his shoulder. He took a shuddering breath.

  It missed.

  Borvak, circling on his pony not fifty yards away, saw the movement. He saw the heavy crossbow aimed not at the charging line, but deep into the heart of their formation.

  "GASH VAK! THRAK VAK KHOR!"

  The effect was instantaneous. The entire Skarl warband, moments before a fluid force playing the long-game, dissolved into a single-minded surge.

  Borvak kicked his pony into a dead sprint, leading the mass not around Leif’s formation, but straight at it. Dozens of warriors followed, abandoning bows, drawing curved sabers and war axes.

  "HOLD!" Leif screamed. "SHIELDS LOCKED! SPEARS BRACED! FOR THE NORTH! HOLD THEM!"

  The impact was thunderous. Shaggy mountain ponies slammed into the overlapping shields. Wood groaned and cracked. Metal shrieked. Men cried out as the shockwave buckled the line. Leif felt the impact jar through his shield arm, threatening to rip his shoulder from its socket.

  Spears thrust desperately over the shield rims. A Skarl pony screamed as a spear point plunged into its chest, its rider tumbling forward only to be impaled on a second thrust. But more came. Sabers hacked down at exposed heads and shoulders.

  The Talon line bowed inward, but it didn’t break.

  "LOOSE! LOOSE AT THE SHAMAN!"

  Behind the shield wall, the remaining crossbowmen aimed away from the mass but toward Grakk’Thor.

  THWACK-THWUNK-THWIPP!

  A ragged volley of arrows arced high over the shield wall. Most fell harmlessly short or sailed overhead. But one, a clumsy shot from a hunter’s short bow, wobbled erratically through the air.

  It missed Grakk’Thor’s head by a handspan. Instead, it slammed into the neck of the shaman’s pony just below its jaw.

  The animal screamed. It reared violently, hooves lashing the air, before its legs buckled. Grakk’Thor was hurled sideways like a rag doll.

  The effect was immediate.

  Above his head, the swirling vortex of stolen life-force – the pulsating sphere of crimson shot through with veins of black corruption – flickered violently. It dimmed, shrinking and stuttering like a dying ember.

  Borvak, mid-swing aiming his saber at a Talon’s exposed neck, suddenly staggered as if punched. All across the Skarl line, warriors faltered. A wave of weakness washed over them as the poison surging back with vengeful force.

  "THEIR POWER’S FAILING!" Leif roared. "PUSH! PUSH THEM!"

  "NA... NA!" Grakk’Thorshrieked. His eyes locked onto his thrashing mount, agony contorting its face, hot blood pumping out onto the frozen earth.

  Sacrifice.

  Scrabbling on his hands and knees, Grakk’Thor lunged for his obsidian knife. He seized it and plunged the blade deep into his dying pony's exposed belly. He ripped upwards, tearing open the cavity. Steam and the stench of ruptured organs filled the air.

  He tore the still-thrumming heart free and screamed his incantation.

  "THUL ZHOG VAK! KHET! GORRASH VAK! UL THRAK VAK DRAS! MORVAK!"

  The vortex pulsed once, violently, and the waves of sustaining power washed back over the Skarl warband.

  "GORRASH VAK!" Borvak’s roar shook the pass. "KHOR UL KHET!"

  He abandoned his position leading the press against the shield wall. He kicked his pony straight at the seemingly impenetrable mass of overlapping Talon shields and bristling spears. His warriors threw themselves at the shield wall with mindless abandon, sabers hacking wildly, trying to physically climb over it to reach the archers beyond.

  Leif shoved through the panicked press. He planted himself directly in Borvak’s path, ten feet from the nearest cowering archer.

  Borvak’s crimson eyes snapped to Leif. He saw the fine sword with the wolf-head pommel. Disdain twisted his features. He swung his heavy saber in a brutal, overhead chop meant to cleave Leif from crown to navel.

  Leif stepped inside the blow’s arc.

  He parried not the blade itself, but the descending wrist guard of Borvak’s forearm with a sharp CLANG of hardened steel. The force was immense, jolting Leif’s entire arm. At the same moment, he thrust upwards with all his strength, aiming the Fenrir point under Borvak’s extended arm, towards the gap in the lamellar armor protecting his armpit.

  Borvak reacted with terrifying speed. He twisted his torso, letting the Fenrir blade slide off the hard leather scales covering his ribs with a scrape. His left hand, gripping a heavy war axe Leif hadn’t even seen him draw, slammed towards Leif’s helmeted head.

  Leif ducked under the whistling axe, feeling the wind of its passage. He spun with the momentum, the Fenrir blade lashing out horizontally in a backhand slash aimed at Borvak’s hamstring. Borvak kicked out, his boot catching Leif’s shin guard. Leif stumbled back, narrowly avoiding a thrust from Borvak’s saber that snagged and tore the shoulder of his jerkin.

  "ARCHERS!" Leif bellowed. "THE SHAMAN! KEEP SHOOTING! DON'T STOP!" He couldn’t afford breaking his focus for even a second. His world narrowed to the blur of Borvak’s weapons.

  A scattered volley of bolts hissed towards the fleeing figure. Most thudded into the snow yards short. One whistled past Grakk’Thor’s head, close enough to tear a feather from his fetishes.

  He flinched but didn’t break stride, chanting hoarsely, pouring more of himself into the vortex. Its light flickered momentarily with each close call that forced him to momentarily ignore the connection on the move.

  Borvak redoubled his assault on Leif, forcing the younger man onto the absolute defensive. Leif blocked a thrust, deflected an axe swipe, felt the wind of another that scraped his helmet, and was forced to leap back over a fallen body, landing off-balance. Borvak pressed the advantage, saber raised for a killing thrust.

  A new recruit crashed into Borvak’s side, shoving him off balance. Borvak snarled, ready to strike the fool down.

  Then it came.

  WooooOOOoooooooo... WooooOOOoooooooo... WooooOOOoooooooo...

  The sound froze every Skarl warrior where they stood. It was the Bone Cry. The Sky Father’s Horn. The fortress that held their elders, women and chilren, was under direct threat.

  Borvak's head whipped towards Grakk’Thor, who had also stopped dead in his tracks. The vortex pulsed erratically.

  "Dras na? VOK THUL!" Borvak roared, gesturing wildly back towards Abercrombie. "Thrak zhog! Gash vak gorrash!"

  Grakk’Thor turned.

  "NA!" he shrieked back. "GASH VAK THUL! KHOR UL! UL KHET VAK THUL!" He pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger towards the Talon crossbows. "VEL MOKTHUL VAK ZHOG!"

  The two Skarl leaders screamed at each other in their guttural tongue, separated by thirty yards of blood-soaked snow. Warriors milled in confusion, the vortex’s control loosened by their leaders’ distraction and the Horn’s command. Some took hesitant steps towards the fight, others looked back towards the distant fort.

  WooooOOOoooooooo... WooooOOOoooooooo... WooooOOOoooooooo...

  The Horn blasted again.

  Borvak looked from Grakk’Thor to the fort, then back to the Talon lines, where Leif had regained his footing, Fenrir blade held ready, breathing hard. To go meant abandoning the kill, leaving these vermin alive, and retreating while poisoned. But to stay meant potentially losing their sacred fortress, their families that were still there, the woman of his heart and the child that would carry his name.

  "VORSAK!" Borvak finally bellowed. He slammed his fist against his chest, then pointed sharply towards Fort Abercrombie. "DRAS NA! VORSAK!"

  "THRAKKA!" Grakk’Thor screamed incoherently. "NA VORSAK! THRAKKA!"

  But he saw the tide turning.

  The Skarl warriors responded to their champion’s command, instead of his. The retreat began, even as their spiritual leader barking the opposite order. Warriors helping weakened comrades onto mounts.

  Hatred burned in Grakk’Thor's contorted face as his milky eyes turned towards the Talons, specifically towards Leif Fenrir and the archers. He raised both hands towards the pulsating vortex above him.

  "THUL ZHOG GASH! VAK DRAS-GUL! MORVAK!"

  He clenched his fists and slammed them downwards, as if driving a stake into the earth.

  The vortex pulsed once, violently, then exploded outwards. A dozen of thick, writhing tendrils of blood-ice lanced towards the ground between the retreating Skarls and the Talon forces. They struck the frozen earth with wet THOOMPS, erupting into jagged walls of crimson-black ice.

  The barriers grew into spiked ramparts five feet high, blocking their way forward while tendrils snapped out, splintering shields that got too close.

  The Skarls melted back into the darkness as swiftly as they came.