Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

Later that night, Leen, the owner of the Broken Fist and the man to whom Morlock had entrusted the invention of the still, sat down beside him. Now that Leen was wealthy, he never stood behind the bar himself; he was so short that he had trouble seeing over it. Back in the days when he couldn’t afford to hire help, he’d kept a series of boxes behind the bar, and it had been fun to watch him deftly leaping from box to box. And if he ever needed to climb over the bar to take care of an unruly customer, he saw to it that the customer would never be a problem again. Morlock rather liked him, although he understood that to Leen he was just another gullible drunk.

“Morlock,” Leen began.

“Leen.”

“Morlock, what do you think you can do about Viklorn and Andhrakar?”

“Leen,” Morlock answered sensibly (but just barely), “what do you think I can do about Viklorn and Andhrakar?”

Leen stood up and walked away. The faces scattered around the barroom, never friendly, turned to Morlock afterward with especial distaste. Morlock, never sensitive, was uncomfortable enough to leave while he was still conscious, an unusual event.

He was back at the usual time the next day, but the Broken Fist was closed. Closed permanently: the door and window-shutters of the inn were nailed shut. He asked a passing townswoman, who told him that Leen had packed up in the night.

“People say he’s moved north to Sarkunden,” she said. “I’m going south, myself. People say Viklorn’s already been there: why would he go back?”

Morlock brushed aside people and their concerns and stuck to the essential point. “Leen went to Sarkunden—a thousand miles away?” he shouted. “Is he insane? What am I supposed to drink?”

The townswoman made a suggestion. Morlock declined (the fluid she mentioned was not an intoxicant), and went back to his cave.

For a day or so, Morlock suffered the delirium that comes sometimes at the end of a drunken binge. Finally he fell asleep and dreamt a prophetic dream. (Among his other wasted talents, Morlock was a seer.)

In the dream, Morlock saw himself confronting Viklorn and Andhrakar. Viklorn was a tall pirate with eyes as red as a weasel’s. He wore dirty, pale, untanned leather with golden fittings, and a gold clip kept his shaggy blond hair out of his face. He said nothing; they fought silently, except for the sound of Andhrakar’s deadly unbreakable blade clashing against Morlock’s sword. Andhrakar dripped with fresh blood, but it was still hungry for life, and soon it began to sing, faintly at first, but then louder and louder. Viklorn laughed, excited and pleased, and Morlock awoke with a curse in his mouth.

This was bad, he thought, sitting up. Never in a thousand years would he have chosen to fight someone armed with Andhrakar. But, although he might be not especially brave (a phrase Morlock preferred, when sober, to the franker coward), he wasn’t stupid. He would fight Viklorn: so the vision told him. He needed to act swiftly if the meeting was to be on his own terms.

He consulted a crow he knew in the neighborhood, who promised to locate Viklorn for him. He spent that day and the next doing exercises to bring his agility and wind closer to what they once had been. When the crow came and told him that Viklorn was at Dhalion, a day’s walk north and west, he thanked it and fed it some grain. Then he threw his backpack on his shoulders, belted on his sword, and started loping with a long, uneven stride northeast on the old Imperial Road. The chances were he would run into Viklorn, if Viklorn was moving eastward from the Narrow Sea.

The road was bad. The old Empire of Ontil had been out of business for centuries, and its roads were returning to nature. Often Morlock walked next to the “pavement” of shattered rocks, dense with tree-roots and overgrowth. But he made pretty good time going on foot. He had a serenely unpleasant feeling he was headed straight for his destined meeting with Viklorn, and it turned out he was right.

It happened this way. Morlock topped a ridge and, looking downward, he saw a wagon overturned beside the road. This was not uncommon. The road was the only route through the masterless lands, but it was terrible for carting goods. Morlock found with surprise, though, that he recognized the man standing beside the cart: it was Leen. He’d had at least three days’ head start on Morlock, but his property must have slowed him down. Morlock saw some people running away from the cart, farther up the road. Perhaps they were going for help, although there was little help to find along this road. Then Morlock saw a man approaching Leen. Morlock knew this man also, but not from seeing him in his waking life. It was the hulking blond man in his dream, the man who carried Andhrakar: Viklorn the killer.

“Leen!” shouted Morlock, lifting his leaden feet and running down the hill. “Run away, you fool! Leave your stuff! I’ll make you a new still! I’ll make you new gold! Run like hell!”