Swords & Heroes Story #13

"Lawbringer" by H. H. Crom

Nov 12, 2024

Of all the storytellers who have appeared so far here at Swords & Heroes eZine (click to see the current ToC), I believe H. H. Crom is the first name that is truly new to me! I’m sure this says more about me as a reader than it does about Stephen Cyr - the man behind the pen name. (Although, I have heard of Crom, obs! lol) Cyr is an avid S&S reviewer, and from his IG page, describes himself thusly: “Swords and sorcery, pulp, horror, published writer, bodybuilder, and gardening apprentice.” Almost all of those interests come through in the following story…except maybe the gardening apprentice part. (grin) Excited to present, then, Swords & Heroes Story #13, “Lawbringer.” + Ed.

Lawbringer by H. H. Crom

Within the snow-covered Hammer Hall, under a smoky ceiling of vaulted timber, a trial of the Shieldmark was coming to a close. A dozen men and a dozen women lined long rustic benches worn smooth by the flank-to-flank service of Shieldling generations. Between these adjudicators were a trio of men in rags. At the rear of the hall, both landowners in finished rabbit cloaks with wolfdogs warming their feet and thralls in rough, salty seal skins clustered to watch. It was not every day that charges of conspiracy and attempted murder were levied in this land. Upon his raised seat of oak sat Chieftain Valdson—his dour countenance cold and empty as the Frozen Waste.

The Truthspeaker who had represented the cowered men for three days rested his bone amulet at the Chieftain’s feet, and the body public shifted in cracklings of leather and rustles of fur, soft whines, and many constricted exhales.

“Following the attempt on my life,” the Chieftain said as he picked up the amulet and played it between his fingers, “these three were apprehended fleeing my estate. You have heard their words. You have seen the evidence: proffered and verified. Before you I place the vote. All those who would find these men guilty, voice your assent!”

Within a moment, all on the benches sang out an “Aye!”

As they were sentenced to death, the condemned held themselves and looked down at their unshod and mottled feet.

“As judge of this tribunal, I have authority to grant clemency when I so desire. I offer mercy to the first man who tells me what I wish to know—tell me the name of the one who ordered my death! In exchange, you will be an outlaw but with life enough to redeem yourself.”

The three men maintained their silence; perhaps they were too cold to speak. The Chieftain growled with consternation, his knuckles grasping the amulet were white.

“Bring the block!” he commanded finally.

A mountainous man, draped with the hide of an enormous boar and with knotted muscles, heaved forth the great stained stone upon which many a man had met his end.

Ulf was first; his head was bound in place with a goatskin cord that circled the stone. With what freedom of movement he had left, the helpless man spasmed and ground his teeth. Hefting a barbarous hammer, the Chieftain moved towards the block like a barrow-dweller descending from its mound. With a crunch, blood and brain blossomed on the ancient stone.

Finn was next and his life ended in much the same way, though pleas for mercy did escape his lips. Even so, none of the onlookers turned away.

Gorm, youngest of the three conspirators, was brought forth last. The pale young man possessed a mop of crudely shorn hair and cheeks scarred with pox, having barely reached his seventeenth summer. Again the Chieftain wielded the hammer but, before it could descend, Gorm cried in a pitiful wail.

“Skaag! Skaag paid us!”

“Speak, and see pardon granted,” ordered the Chieftain, the great hammer still looming.

The wretch’s confession came out in a stammer: “Years ago you judged him an outlaw and condemned him to the Frozen Waste. Your death would have been a sweet revenge to him.”

At this, the Great Chieftain pondered, “The name is not even a memory to me…”

“He remembers you,” assured Gorm quickly. “Please! I have done as you asked.”

With a wave from the Chieftain, the mountainous man cut the cords and Gorm rose, glancing about nervously at scornful faces. He gave a faint bow and turned to flee.

A gravelly voice brought him up short.

“Halt!”

From beyond the firelight of the Hammer Hall strode a giant man: long of limb, gold of hair, with blue eyes almost bleached by the arctic winds. A cobalt tattoo in the shape of a hammer ran from his high forehead to his long braided beard. On his hip was a sword sheathed in plain but well-stitched leather with a curious pommel wrapped in burlap. A murmur rose amidst the throng at this entrance. A child in an entire black cub skin stood on his father’s shoulders to catch his first glimpse of a Lawbringer.

With a solemn manner, Halfgrim the Lawbringer applied his vast hand to Gorm’s smaller neck. He twisted the boy’s head to one side and then, framing the boy’s ear with his fingers, removed a triangle of that cupped, plastic flesh with a cruel blade produced from his belt. It all happened so quickly that Gorm stared and held his bleeding head with some shock. Halfgrim tossed the fragment to the closest wolfdog.

“Now, where are we to find this Skaag?”

The sun rose red the following morning as Halfgrim and thirty others, his chosen lawmen atop shaggy horses, departed through the city gates. Each was arrayed with heavy lances, tall kite shields, nasal helms, and fur cloaks. Gorm the Outlaw was among them, shamefully chained to a rough sledge. Ahead of them was a week of hard riding over a frozen snow-covered landscape.

By nightfall, emerald eels in the sky lit the desolate land with an alien glow. As each day dawned, the lawmen took down their camp with precision, and it again emerged from their packs as the sun set. Within his tent, Gorm chewed nightly on rations of cold trawl with thoughts of his stern stepmother, no doubt still somewhere back in Harr, making brown bread and spiced apple cake at an open hearth hung with drying herbs and salted fish. Even her face would have been welcome to him now in this darkness. Though it felt that he never slept, each morning he was roused by a yank at his iron collar before being dragged into the whipping icy winds. The dawn always came, and the eternal sea of hoarfrost sparkled with blinding radiance.

By the sixth day, Gorm could no longer sleep for dread of the morning. He had all but forgotten the feeling of warmth, and a void that was insupportable gnawed his guts and twisted and tore— Was it for something other than trawl or was something leaving him?

He remembered an elder from his childhood whose every hair was white, whose eyes were clouded, but whose body perversely beat onward, and how this old man had begged the Gods to die. They had brought him to a body of water as the leaves were unfurling from the trees, and even then his force had fought and his breath had sputtered in the cold water…

At the start of the seventh day, the vast, gray Mount of Frumog was visible against the opalescent sky. Their packs were lighter and anticipation within the party grew. If the testimony of Gorm was reliable, they would reach their destination before nightfall.

As hues of gold faded to purple, the lawmen perched on a crest of rock and ice. This was the west end of the Shieldmark, distinguished by an abandoned bay of perpetual black ice given up by shipgoers years ago when a freezing pall had overcome the land. A rotten sore on the otherwise prosperous country that the Lawbringer would have sliced off if he could. The men of his party were agitated with the same desire. Beneath them on this precipice, tucked between crags was The Traitor’s Law—a primitive burg with leaning wooden palisades and half-toppled huts. A handful of malnourished animals meandered about within.

“They gather in the longhouse,” observed Halfgrim, gesturing to the largest of the rundown structures from which steam was presently rising. “Don your helmets, light your torches!”

At this order, their pinpricks of fire wove down the icy path. Halfgrim kept a hawk’s eye on the settlement as they descended, watching for any movement from the huts or longhouse, but he saw none. Not a single denizen of The Traitor’s Law appeared. Finally, as they approached the gate, a two man watch emerged from the sentry house.

“Who goes there?” called the smallest one in a dirty hood.

“My name is unimportant. I am a Lawbringer come to collect Skaag, who is to stand trial.”

“But he has been within these walls for months, what crimes could he have committed?” wheedled the sentry.

“The crimes of conspiracy—” Halfgrim’s voice cut off as his head spun and his blue eyes flashed with alarm.

A horn had blared from behind them, its echo crashing off the icy ramparts from the seemingly empty path they had just traveled. The party sensed but could not yet see a mass surging in the opaque black night, uncountable bodies of unknown size and shape were just beyond the veil of darkness. The whole world trembled. Then the darkness collapsed onto the Lawbringer and his men.

Twenty or so enormous and pendulous beasts slouched into view, blocking their retreat. Monstrous things with shaggy coats of gray and brown, and lumbering foreheads above coal black eyes. Gorm had time to gasp “Mammoth Riders!” before he was swept to the rear. A handful of men, hitherto hidden, leapt forth from the sides of the gate and surged to bring their crude spears to the party’s flanks.

“Break the cauldron!” ordered Halfgrim, seeing their dire position. “Charge!”

The lawmen hurled themselves at the wall of tusks—Gorm on his sledge, helplessly in tow. Iron tips at the end of thick shafts pierced horse and rider alike. There were horrific cries of both fear and ruthless strength. For a moment, the force in Gorm sputtered. His head was battered by steel elbows and hooves, and suddenly he felt warmth on his shoulder. He looked up to see the gaping torso of the driver of his sledge, glistening in the light of a hundred moving torches.

Halfgrim roared as he brought an approaching beast low with a singular thrust through its eye. But his lance was extended too far, and an instant later Gorm watched as the Lawbringer and his horse were sent tumbling, struck by a pair of titan ivory tusks.

A brief cry left the young outlaw’s lips as another of the great beasts charged in his direction. What followed was cold desolation.

Gorm first heard the sound of crunching. His eyes had trouble focusing and he could see only vague lumps of shadow. The night was a still inky emptiness now. He felt ringing in his head followed by the sharp sting of frost in his limbs. Around and about were the lifeless bodies of the lawmen. Time had passed, but he could not tell how much. His eyes scanned the scene until fixing onto some barely discernable movement in the darkness.

Imagine the fear that took hold of Gorm when, as if out of nothing, shining eyes, scimitar fangs, and a pale muzzle dripping crimson finally coalesced into understanding. What terror came over the poor man of Harr, then, as a monster only known from fireside tales crept into view.

The sabercat was a luminous white and approached the young outlaw with an appalling grace, its low belly brushing the icy snow. Gorm struggled to move but it was no use; whether his legs were caught in the reins of the sledge or they simply would not obey him, he did not know. His head was burning. He tried to remember what he had heard once about this beast—a prayer moved on his lips—and he almost smelled the fire of those warm nights long ago when horrors were only made of smoke.

In the last moment, before it closed the distance between them, the legs of the great cat seemed to strangely twist and its neck crooked unnaturally back to its spine. Then the brutish head toppled into a snowy mound. A veil of hoarfrost and ice seemed to bloom from the ground around the creature. Above the beast—or was it?—was a shadowy form with a glittering blade, the fire gem within its pommel was naked and shining.

Returning the sword to its sheath, Halfgrim righted the younger man who looked at the Lawbringer as if seeing him for the first time. Gorm saw an intense fury in the larger man’s eyes, and a horror within, and then it vanished in an instant. From the direction of the longhouse came faint singing.

“They will drink themselves stupid soon enough. Then our path will open,” said Halfgrim as he settled himself against the flank of the dead mammoth, its back shielding him from the wind and any mortal eyes. Gorm followed.

“Where does Skaag lay his head?”

“The longhouse, mostly,” replied the young outlaw. He wiped blood from his forehead.

The Lawbringer considered him closely. “Aid me in my task, and Cheiftain Valdson may remove your mark at my request.”

Gorm’s eyes stared at him and he nodded his assent.

The sounds from the longhouse died off as the night crept on. At the right moment only known to him, Halfgrim slunk from their place of cover to the leaning wooden palisades and edged to the gate.

Neither watchman saw the Lawbringer at their side until it was too late. Without a sound, both of their throats were cut and blood gushed over Halfgrim’s hands, who was clearly satisfied with this work. Together they tucked away the bodies from view before pulling on the dirty gray clothes of the watchmen. As he belted the fur onto his body, Gorm was handed a spear but it’s weight caused it to slip from his hand and it fell with a thud.

The Lawbringer looked at the young man with concern and a note of warning. Halfgrim reflected for a split second more and then shoved one of their crude helmets onto his head, obscuring his face. They entered The Traitor’s Law.

Dwindling fires crackled but, at that late hour, none stirred. Gorm pointed to a door at the back of the longhouse. They wove quietly between hairy, sleeping forms, their footfalls squishing across the dirt floor wet with swill. A wolfdog raised its head but was too starved to aggress these intruders. Gorm forgot to breathe as he held the spear from the floor littered randomly with living and solid obstacles. Pausing to spit quietly on the outlaw’s throne at the end of the hall, the Lawbringer proceeded to push open the door to Skaag’s chamber.

The room was garishly adorned with pilfered trinkets. Upon a fine brass chain hung a southern tapestry woven with golden threads, a raisin lump of garnet stones shone on a pewter plate, and a set of goblets carved out of ivory tusks and bearing wine stains were scattered throughout the room. In the corner, a fire burned. A man and two women were curled within a large animal fur in front of it.

Halfgrim approached noiselessly as Gorm lingered at the threshold—his eyes were caught by the wealth before him. The Lawbringer loomed over the sleeping figures and his arms extended in a curious dance above them for a moment. He hoisted his sword in an extension of this dance, the gem in its pommel catching the firelight. He plunged the glinting blade into Skaag’s prostrate chest and, as the criminal gasped, pushed the bone amulet into the wound to keep it open. Screams from the women broke the silence in the longhouse, followed by shouts that came from beyond the door they had entered.

Glancing quickly about, Halfgrim sought a means of escape. Gorm’s heart sickened with the sound of men’s rage crescendoing into a roar. The women’s screams responded with increasing intensity from within their room.

Though nearly dead, Skaag staggered to his feet with a sword, a hand searching the amulet wound. His red eyes roamed the room and fell on Gorm. Between the mouthfuls of blood choking him, and the frenzied fingers trying to keep life inside him, Skaag managed to ejaculate “Traitor!”

Seeing his work undone, Halfgrim raised his sword and struck the ugly head from its body. Skaag’s face registered simple surprise before falling to the men’s feet and rolling towards the women. Moved by what rite was woven in that room, Gorm found himself taking the sword from Skaag’s now lifeless hand.

Leaving behind a cacophony of human misery, the pair escaped the lodge and lept upon two haggard horses before dashing through the unguarded gate.

By dawn, their trail was clear and both men eased their reigns. Though Gorm hoped for refuge, he soon realized it was only a long road ahead grinning back at him. As time wore on, there was an unreality in their loneliness on the same path they had taken days before in the company of the lawmen. Now Frumog stood behind them, and they had precious little to eat.

“What will you do now?” asked Gorm, almost of himself, his head sunken and swaying, his nose and notched ear black with frostbite. Skaag’s sword was loosely tied to his saddle with a strap of leather.

“With my lawmen dead, I will need more men. If the Chieftain removes your mark, perhaps you will find a place among them.”

Gorm seemed to cough a bit at the statement and gazed at the Lawbringer instead of the horizon. Hoarfrost was playing around the legs of the nag Halfgrim was riding, it seemed to be enveloping his feet, then his waist with the peculiar sword, and then, finally, the torso of the Lawbringer until the icy blue eyes were one with the sky.

Mirth spread like warmth in Gorm’s chest and his head tilted back as if in laughter.

But before the man of Harr toppled from his saddle, the outstretched hand of the Lawbringer caught his arm. Like an old sailor hoisting a catch from the sea, Halfgrim heaped what was left of Gorm onto his own saddle.

When his awareness returned, the young man thought only to ask, “Why?”

“A Lawbringer’s oath must not be broken,” was all Halfgrim said in response.

Gorm closed his eyes and dreamt that water washed over him as the two faded into the fire of the frozen sunset.

Lawbringer © 2024 by Stephen Cyr writing as H. H. Crom (3000 words) All rights reserved. You may restack this story via Substack but please do not republish elsewhere. Banner and sword illustrations by Gilead, used by permission.

H.H. Crom is the pseudonym of Stephen Cyr, a writer hailing from the desolate and misty lands of western Massachusetts. Follow his journey and discover more of his tales and adventures on his Instagram @heavycrom.

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