Chapter X:
The Countess, the Vaighling and the Three-faced Prince
Grimnar drew his axe, hacking away at a brilliant pace. With a single chop, the tallest of groves were sent backwards like playing cards.
Embla and Kurt then witnessed the creeping horrors that lay within the poisoned wood: wriggling fanged worms in droves spilled forth from the toppled giants.
Avian vaighlings roosting in the woods screamed out alarms, discordant and shrill, their red eyes lighting the dark of the wood.
Buck had sprung off, quicker than Canute who still glided over the wriggling fanged worms, stomping on their bulbous heads when necessary.
Kurt held aloft the flaming Ettinslayer, stabbing and cursing the worms in their droves into cinders.
Embla bore Kurt’s old arquebus, shooting away at the storming vaighlings and worms.
But many more kept their distance, watching them all from their perches.
“They speak of him,” said Grimnar stroking his mossy beard. He swung his axe at more of the rotting white trees. The dead wood thinned and thinned, the murk of the place only slightly unobscured in the brown stinking haze.
“They speak of whom?” said Kurt when the fighting had eased. Grimnar looked around the grove. In a hushed voice he said:
“The Gomoslakter. The man with many faces.”
Embla nodded. “If the Groomslayer is coming, I’ll take one of those heads the first chance I get…”
Grimnar shot her a concerned look. “His head is not one you could take. You do not understand the nature of that beast. He was once
man, but has become something far removed from humanity. He breeds death and proliferates cadavers like one of these rotting volltroll trees. The skeletons attached to him were once a previous Gomoslakter, and so on and so on, you see.”
Kurt listening closely said, “So, the Groomslayer slays other Groomslayers…and they become one body afterwards?”
Grimnar shook his head. “No, I would say that the slain become servants to a new ‘head’ body..”
“I enjoy hearing these theories…please,reveal more, it is a pleasure to me," said a dark figure emerging from the trees.
Appearing before the trio was a hovering obelisk-craft as tall as the diseased-sequoias.
Vaighlings crowded around the ship whispering in their hideous tongue.
The figure was tall, a huge man in black and red rubber outfit, an O.A inscribed on his chest.
The steely square helmet that fell upon his head housed three faces: two were black skulls, the third netherface the handsome visage of Adatmen, son of Erich von Herrenhausen Sr, dead, green and smiling.
He extended a long purple arquebus and fired.
Embla fell limp into the dirt.
“Embla!” shouted Kurt.
Grimnar shouted back, “Don’t let your guard down! He’s testing us…”
“Huh…?” Embla stood up brushing the dirt off her body, the arquebus shell lodged in a protective coating of quickore about her middle. The Groomslayer fired again at Kurt and Grimnar.
The arquebus exploded in his hand, as he yelped. “Hellfire!!! Hellfire!!!”
Grimnar laughed heartily. “If you know us to be protected from death by the Weever’s armor, why do you bother to shoot?! Miserable thing you are.”
“I am Prince of the Wildermark and will not be mocked! You think you’re so smart, hmmm? Do you know what we have done to the other one…that prisoner locked up in your ship? Oh of course you do...the Unghost's mistress assisted us in the affair...”
“You’ve tortured him in the Eldermark; made him one of you! That's not what I wanted!” shouted Embla.
“Don’t speak to me of torture, girl. If you only knew the lengths of my torment…my sacrifices… you don’t understand? You were one of my servants before when I was the Duke of Subohemia! Adatmen the first New-Man, General of the Order of Azza...that is what I was called...yes. I allowed myself to be torn apart, dissected, my manhood forfeited…Alas, I am now reborn. Now, I am Prince of the Wildermark! The prince of all Earth and Ettinland!!!”
“I was never one of your servants…my father built that island you called a dukedom!” growled Embla.
“And I killed your father…well, a story for another day, perhaps,” smiled Adatmen's rotting face.
“So, you cannot harm us, have you come only to reveal your new body, Gomoslakter?” asked Grimnar.
The green face snarled. “No, I’ve come to claim our champion, our champion who shall be as a second prince to you; who was kept prisoner for a thousand years in the Eldermark! Do not worry, he is fine, he is stronger than before…”
Kurt then spoke to the Three-faced man: “And yet Etzel, your champion, wishes for one thing and only one thing in this world, and you cannot grant that to him. Even after 1000 years he still desires and mourns his beloved...”
“Etzel? Who? Oh...I am trying to recall what Eugenius Geissler made of those two... you mean my cousin, the one once called Verity Countess von Herrenhausen-West?”
“No, Verity is whom Etzel desires! His beloved!” said Kurt. He squeezed the Weever's Tooth, still glimmering in the murk of the woods.
“Ah, so Grimnar never told you…never told you…Or did he never know? Let me try and recall...I shall let Eugenius speak for me.”
One of the black skulls from his face opened its jaws and moaning spoke: “Your prisoner, that body, whom you called 'Verity's Bodyguard' is a corpse. A reanimated thing, a puppet with a wretched soul, but after one thousand years, a corpse is revitalized with the Unghost as its head and master…”
Grimnar nodded. “I was acquainted with him as a boy for a brief period during the taboo wars, and heard tell of his death…Seventy years ago.”
“Seventy years?…” Kurt shook his head in disbelief. “That’s impossible…I saw Etzel later than that...fifty years ago on the Jaguar Hunt...”
“No, Kurt,” said Grimnar softly, “it is true what this creature says. Etzel was killed seventy years ago…at the command of Verity von Herrenhausen.”
Kurt turned deathly pale at the revelation.
“So that was not Etzel with us…not Etzel in the ship, held for a thousand years by the Unghost?” said Kurt.
The black skull of Eugenius Geissler continued to speak: “ I told you already who it was! A soul in search of a body; Verity traded the blood of many men for power, her father's foot soldiers the commonest offerings for her glory in this new ettin world. Last, she accepted her Bodyguard as an offering to Lord Azza...But when she saw that man, that Etzel at her bedroom door, her latest Bodyguard, she screamed out: 'no, spare him, spare him! I didn't mean him!'”
The Groomslayer’s fleshy face giggled.
"She wept over his body...wept! Oh, how the Groomslayer hated to see that pitiful display so near to marital affection…She pleaded with me: 'Please, not him...let him live on...let it be me instead!' So I obliged her...It was a simple procedure. We took the boy's body and made it suitable for a new brain, a new soul, and with a few cosmetic modifications he was ready. You see, I, master surgeon, a technician of meat and bone and made it so! Thus we fulfilled her wish and Verity von Herrenhausen was granted the living corpse of her lover! Ah, how she wept, how she tried to end it all...no use killing a god, the apegift had already been offered. Verity did her best to go into hiding, working as a bodyguard for the second apegift, requesting from the master a new female form, much like the old one... But it seems she quite likes the one she has now...Yes, Verity von Herrenhausen was made anew into the body of her murdered lover!! And she is quite content with the results if I may boast...”
Adatmen’s head giggled even more heartily.
Verity von Herrenhausen was made anew into the body of her murdered lover!!
The words clanged and echoed out in Kurt’s pulver ear.
Verity was the one inside the box; the true heiress of the Weever’s tooth.
Her word, her assent was needed to complete the Weever, to reanimate it, to let it loose upon the ettins and reverse their devastation upon mankind.
Verity Von, mad, murderess now mutilated---no she did not deserve that fate…thought Kurt.
Not even if she ordered the execution of innocents...or did she deserve it?
He ignored the thought.
It could wait.
“And now, Verity, Verity, our champion for this new world, may she come forth!”
The Groomslayer marched around giddily, relishing his time goosestepping towards Embla’s ship.
The taut cord tied to Canute frayed, then split. Buck had delivered a hearty bite to the quickore thread.
“Buck!” yelled Embla. “What are you doing!”
Only an Errandghost’s bite may sever the cord recalled Kurt.
Grimnar lowered his head. “…this is the way it must be. Verity has made her decision.”
The Groomslayer opened the wrecked ship’s hidden door, and took a step back.
He waited a moment, humming a discordant tune.
A blast of green flames shot from the doorway, causing the Groomslayer to leap from the ship.
The ship was now totally incinerated, only a few bits and globs of its dark material remaining.
They all looked in awe towards the flames and what emerged therefrom.
Corpse-like, the entire body covered in long white needles, the eyes a glowing blue, it held out is right arm shaped like a scimitar, naked except for a brown flesh like shawl wrapped around its head, and upper torso.
The vaighling flocks rejoiced at its appearing.
Tears welled in Embla’s eyes. “No…it can’t be…please. Verity??!!”
Kurt held fast to the Tooth.
The creature looked to them all, then leapt forward.
A torrent of green fire vomited forth from its exposed heart.
The forswealing fire scathed the Groomslayer's three faces.
He screamed orders to cease the onslaught that were left ignored.
Verity turned to Kurt, her eyes like the raging fire.
It was as if Kurt’s and the Bodyguard's battle in the Chateau had not ceased, though it was two nights for him, and a thousand for the prisoner.
The scimitar-arm came down.
Kurt crouched. He held out Deathbrand in defense, its wolfhead spewing flames burning blue and orange and white, lashing out like great tendril whips upon what once was Etzel’s body.
Etzel Galvan, seventy years dead, thought Kurt…
“Verity!!! Listen!!! We want to get your real body back!!!” shouted Grimnar.
The creature stopped its attack. It turned to the big green man.
Grimnar stepped between the two duelists.
“Verity…we know, we know what happened to you…to Etzel. Please, we want to help you…But we need to fight together…against them! Against these yottins! We are all heirs to the Weever…and Rammbock is here among us. His heart beats among us, and he wants you to stop suffering…They robbed you of your body…the Gomoslakter robbed you of your body!!! Look at him, Verity, look, it’s Eugenius Geissler himself even reduced to a skull. We can defeat him! But only if you offer the Weever’s Tooth to Rammbock, to his Heart. All four of us are here...We can end this and destroy them all now!!!”
The Groomslayer shot an annoyed look over to Verity.
“Champion of the Unghost, you can’t believe this lying ape is telling the truth. Lord Azza shall be your guide and you shall conquer all these apes and reign eternally...you were never who they claim you to be! Not little Verity so cute an petite! Not the ugly Bodyguard! No, you are and always have been the Champion of the Eldermark!”
Verity turned to look at Groomslayer.
She spoke, the voice terrible to listen to, like screeching bird of prey: “How do I not know yours is the lying tongue?”
“Because…because I worked for the Unghost! I knew about their plans!”
“Plans???…”
“Their plans to take your throne. To make you into a corpse...”
“Yes, I have seen what they did to the dead one...Verity...”
Embla shouted. “You are Verity!!! They tortured and imprisoned you for a thousand years!”
The fiery blue eyes of Verity landed on Embla.
“No...I remember...you made me prisoner...”
“Come now, you two, off to Subohemia we must fly.”
A gaunt, sallow skinned man with round spectacles and a faint mustache stepped out of the Obelisk.
"Orbaulker!" shouted Grimnar, enraged at the presence of the vaighling.
Orbaulker sneered bckoning a black gloved hand over to the Groomslayer.
“Come,come,my Champion. You remember what my father promised you,correct?”
Verity nodded. “No one will ever make me their prisoner again...”
Groomslayer, Orbaulker and Verity stepped to the threshold of the obelisk-ship, the titanic winged mountain that ettins called the New-Errandghosts.
A frog-like eye looked from the top of the ship down on them all below, the eye fixed especially on Kurt.
“Wait! Verity!” he cried out.
Orbaulker’s champion turned towards Kurt, as if the distant blue lights of eyes were looking through him rather than to him.
Kurt hurled the shimmering Tooth of the Weever to the champion, hoping that a soul somewhere there, still cognizant enough to recognize the importance of the heirloom, breathed still in that ettinbody.
“Your Heirloom, Verity.” The corpse of Etzel caught it, examined it in its palm and smelled it.
“It is filth...” She tossed it to the earth and turned back to the ship.
“You are wise, O Champion” said the Groomslayer somewhat nervously.
Verity ignored him walking into the obelisk.
“Orbaulker…? Why don’t we trap them, or do something...we can’t just leave them here!” said the Groomslayer stiffly.
Orbaulker waved him off.
“Let them be…Azza has something else in mind...we’re done in these woods. Except for you…you’ll be made the new warden here.”
The green face of Adatmen winced.
“Warden? I will not! I am Prince of the Wildermark! The Grand Duke of Subohemia. Et cetera.”
“And as Prince you must know I speak for your king. Remain here.”
“No. I am the only King I answer to...”
Flagellating fire cracked at the Groomslayer’s torso, singing his uniform off.
Naked and shocked he looked upon Verity and Orbaulker in dismay. Another row of striking embers spilled from Verity’s heart.
Adatmen felt corporal pain for the first time in a hundred years. The New-Man, the Prince of the Wildermark fled from the ship, chased by Etzel’s corpse. He clumsily sprang into a heap of the charred globular remains of Embla’s ship, through its apegift door, and disappeared into its abyss.
Orbaulker and the Champion left the woods there in the ship, flying off over the mighty hills and away through a diamond shaped hole in the sky.
Not long after, a blanket of white flakes began to cover the mountains and the forest and valley below.
“An early Winter for these parts,” said Grimnar, dusting snow from his furs. They had known early winters further south, Kurt paying the weather no mind. He said,sullenly, “We have to help her…we must save her…But,how…how will we convince her…I mean…I could have slain her then with Deathbrand, she had the same needled-skin as Mockwitch…she’s become like an ettin. Can an ettin become human again?”
Grimnar put his hand on Kurt’s shoulder and sighed. “Only one knows the answer...Now, come, come, let me show you my home. A few hot drinks may be in order before we set out in the morning.”
“Set out where?” asked Embla.
“Where else,” said Grimnar patting Buck on the neck, “To the tower. To Rammbock’s Tower!! No substantial answers can be had but by him.”
Through the snow, the haze cleared. The tower revealed itself, only a mile away from their position.
The tower was a mighty redwood planted in the middle of the erstwhile mighty forest, a relic, a living fossil, bolstered by a spiraling blue staircase chasing itself up to the tree’s canopy. Above the tree hovered an oblong shaped structure, red, flaming from its roof top.
Deathbrand’s candles coursed a dozen yards upwards matching the flames atop the tree-tower.
“Rammbock’s floating castle has descended for the first time since the dawn of man,” said Grimnar.
He then sang a tune familiar to Kurt, sung by John all those years ago: “Before man was man, Rammbock warred with ettinland, Rammbock King, the steady ancient hand.”
Chapter XI: A Fisherman's Return