of distress. From a magnetized charm, given to one of his captains, Feydor detected the prescience of catastrophe.
An ill-humored brooding overcame him; he endeavored to place images of death, in his exercise of mystical powers, among other situations as they happened simultaneously. He contemplated the situation with unpretentious demise and pondered the fate of Nicholas Torymorton's prophetic cudgel. 'Great Hoth, blind slayer of Balder, god of innocence,' Volki meditated. 'Loosen the bonds on your fiendish ruler, Loki, that he may turn inside the earth and shake loose my discomforting parasites. Glittering halls of immortality, wherein Odin's slain become heroically received, stand a chivalrous amusement to your own duress. As a persevering shepherd's hound managing varied herds of unassertive livestock, influence, anticipated through presage and patience, has brought me, finally, to supremacy over my collective commonwealth. To give my resolved exertion some form of unity I want my ascendant army to unify nescience and discord among warring states. I must coalesce the incomparable power of Trome into an unbending tool that strengthens that will. No force in heaven will sway my volition. Powers made operative by motive energy in the universe stand detectable only when unveiled by my assured admission of a belief, only, in the condition of not existing after death. Light of the sun would have no revelation without inimical darkness of night; so I justify the use of enshrouded and malicious impulse in activation of my desire. When humanity becomes eventually unified, a more prominent set of goals may advocate themselves that will benefit the entire brotherhood of human beings. For now, the singular objective of Trome, like many great nations before mine, is to solidify and control all of mankind. If it requires enslaving all of humanity to achieve that end, then so be it my intention.'
Lord Volki poised in zealous confidence and listened, throughout that day, to apathetic intensification of advisors who spoke to him on matters of state and disposition of his army. He held a reprehensible fear over being left alone for any length of time. Loneliness, to the despondent ruler of Trome, was both vituperative and dangerous.
CHAPTER 2
Thorvald studied windswept fissures in tempestuous violence on the tumult of the ocean's disorderly surface. The charging craft, which pursued his men from Aboregale, crept along with unfaltering consistence at a catapult's throw to starboard. "How can they track me through the imperceptive somber of nightfall," he asked his mystical consultant?
"It is a mystery to me," replied Marmalock Arabolis. "For three days they have hovered behind us, just out of sight, the tip of their mast barely visible on the vanishing horizon. It is as though a mind reader wields the rudder of their ship, tipping his oar with identical symmetry to our own. Even at night, the caitiff chases in our wake and appears upon the horizon with each new morning. I fear Freyr has sent an elusive specter to guide the scoundrel through Odin's wrath."
"I would stop to glorify him with battle," argued Thorvald. "But I fear we would both perish in the tempest before either could match temper with his sword."
"We should make land soon," extended the discerning old wizard. His lucid eyes focused on distant flocks of gulls. The brightening sky unveiled a thin strip of jagged mountains pushing upward from the tumbling ocean's surface.
"Awaken Liana," Thorvald instructed Marmalock. The princess stirred from her resting place in the aft section of the boat. She deliberated an attenuate rise of land as it surfaced before the pitching craft.
"You are just in time for your first glimpse of Glassel, princess," greeted Thorvald. "Marmalock, do you see how it hurdles from the ocean to greet us? How are you feeling this morning Liana?"
"As well as may be expected," replied the emperor's daughter. "How far are we from port?"
"There are no ports in Glassel," Thorvald reported to the princess, "only lengthy fjords with narrow inlets and steep cliffs. I shall try and spot a recess along the coast. There we can hide from this storm and confront our antagonists from Trome. Only one ship remains in our pursuit."
Progression of time lured the daystar's irresolute nucleus from behind an obstinate, overcast sky. Unanticipated, a breach of sunshine cast its heightened beam of light on harsh escarpments that intruded magnificently from tumult on the wind swept ocean. Veiled along the coastline of Glassel were divergent inlets where ships could travel inland, for days at a time, without seeing the opened sea. Thorvald chose an aperture between the cliffs, he was inordinately familiar with, into which he piloted his ship. He perceptively guided his enervated crew through interspace between a long fjord and the expansive ocean, keeping a riled glance in direction of the besieging pursuers from Trome.
Barbidal's intrepid voyagers set happily upon still water of the inland watercourse. They dipped his ship's sturdy flat paddles, affixed with long durable handles, rhythmically into the tranquil bay to pull their boat smoothly along its unruffled surface. As they heaved to the oars his men sang in a low chant, appreciative thanks to their gods for the ship's safe return.
Princess Liana kept vigil in the aft section of the ship with Thorvald. She watched apprehensively while the craft from Trome entered a narrow corridor between towering cliffs. It glided serenely to a standstill. Occupants reconnoitered the ascension of vertical precipices that gave them asylum from the treacherous sea. The princess' palliative charm reflected an integrity and virtue in her that was both trustworthy and equitable. Beauty of her veracity exhibited itself in the mannered subtlety with which she consulted Thorvald on welfare of her father's subjects. A grace in the way Liana placed value on things of virtue showed in a benevolence that was kind and thoughtful. Her continuing appeal to the higher ideals of humanity captured Barbidal's attention and allied him to her cause.
"He is wary to follow us into our own realm," observed Thorvald. "That ship's captain knows the opened sea but is suspicious of our unfamiliar inland waterway. I am sure some from of sea sprite has rendered him assistance. It is well they should be mistrustful. The deep fjords have a hundred turns; they have a thousand places to hide. We will force them to give us battle or return to opened ocean. The further he follows us into our domain the worse his chances will be in returning to Trome with news of our whereabouts. It is half a day's paddle to our first camp. If he is imprudent and continues his chase, we will find reinforcements there to secure his defeat."
"We must not let them return with the familiarity of your country's location and strength," warned Princess Torymorton. "Knowledge of the position and power of Glassel will betray you should it fall into the hands of Lord Volki."
Thorvald surveyed the antagonists. Both boats rested just inside the neck to a passage back into the North Sea. The men of Trome were wan to persist in the quest of Thorvald's elusive vessel. Sinister and forbidding apprehension signaled the helmsman of Trome's ship as to possibilities of ambush inside the fjord's twisting passageway. Barbidal's men became strained from the long sea crossing. They confronted the concept of battle, nevertheless, with resourceful expectation and profound faith in their leader. Thorvald's men were expedient and accomplished sailors as well as zealous fighters.
Marmalock passed rations of food and water to men at the oars. The men ate curry made from water, fish, oats, and wild berries, secured from Torymorton's citadel in Aboregale. Water and food lashed themselves to the stern, on both sides of the steering oar, in staunch wooden barrels with metal bands. While Marmalock's heavily spiced sauce had become tainted, somewhat rancid after days and weeks in a wooden container, it served as nutrition for the hungry crew.
"You are right," reciprocated Thorvald. "It is unpretentious that we allow the vessel to return with apprehension as to our main force's location. Entrance into the deep waterway must not become intelligence given to evil Lord Volki."
Thorvald forced the boat from Glassel around until they were within a few hundred feet of the craft from Trome, heading directly toward her bow. Stabilizing feathers from arrow whirled in lethal whistles from both boats. As iron tipped staves struck the shielded sides of his ship Thorvald taunted his oarsmen onward.
Barbidal picked up a longbow. He aimed meticulously at the helmsman of the enemy's boat. His shaft found its mark amid a tumult of stinging death. For a valuable moment the pursued craft lost its guidance and swung broadside to Thorvald's boat. The men of Glassel sent a shower of shafts into the boat's occupants, guarded by the angle of their own ship and shields. As their bow caught the vessel from Trome in its midsection the first row of Barbidal's rowers rushed its opened flank with enraged yells. With wrathful intention, bearded attackers impaled a haggard crewman and rushed aboard.
"Get a rope on her," yelled Thorvald. "Don't let us drift apart!"
A protracted exertion of forceful vitality brought the besieged craft in complementary position to Thorvald's boat. Berserkers from Glassel rushed onboard the impaired ship. Liana hid protectingly astern of the heated siege and watched the battle with circumspect admonition; her father died defending his kingdom from the unpitying pillage of Lord Volki's army. Because of their ill-considered vandalism and merciless slaughter of her countrymen, Princess Torymorton watched with self-satisfaction while Thorvald's men invaded the pursuer's craft.
It was canonic criterion for men from Glassel to be completely destructive; they were frenetically violent in their onslaughts. Depredation, which had long been his men's way of life, led Barbidal's crew in undirected mayhem. Weapons, serrated in notched evidence of conflict, dripped crimson with blood in the glittering morning's havoc. Sharp lamentation broke through brittle, confused bloodshed as Thorvald commanded the offensive.
"Onward," exalted Thorvald! "Into the great halls of Valhalla with these men. Odin waits for them in our triumph!" He explained to Liana: "There is no time to deliberate over her barbarous troupe. We must become finished with the men and this craft."
"Take the ship! Be done with this treacherous horde," Thorvald elated above the roar of battle. "Leave no host of Trome to edify entrance into our inland waterway."
The Berserkers' unfailing leader cut his way into the heart of hostilities amid flailing weapons and the pitiless moans of men wounded and dying. In a brief flickering, his controlled onslaught brought the most ruthless of his pursuers to the mercy of their attack. In chaos of the assault Marmalock Arabolis called to a creator of man and the cosmos to give his men the bravery required of them to win their battle.
"To the deity of wisdom, art and war," chanted Marmalock, "I call to Odin. His force clashes together the stars and created the earth. May the duress of his fabulous friction energize those who glorify it in battle." Like an infallible medication, the brave old prodigy's magic worked. In pools of blood, as the wizard chanted his earnest laud to the great Norse god, Thorvald's men beleaguered their intimidators until all but the wounded helmsman lay liquidated on the blemished hull of the boat.
"Preserve the steerer that I may foreordain his strange method in determining our progress on opened seas at night," ordered Thorvald as he looked severely at the hapless man. The helmsman was a strapping individual well his own height. Thorvald assessed the last living member of the crew from Trome with inquisitive