THE DAEMON'S GIFT 
by Robert Baumgartner 
	
	'Here they come.' Aelfir said. He grinned, showing teeth filed to points. Rain lashed the night, drenching the cold stones that rose above the warband. Great fires burned despite the rain, the water sizzling as it fell on the burning wood. In the light of the fires twisted shapes of beasts could be seen, monstrous blends of man and animal with cruel horns that cast distorted shadows as they dashed among the stones, rushing up the sides of the ancient temple mound toward the waiting Orning warriors.
	'Let us go and greet them,' said Khojin, resplendent in silver armour that gleamed even in the rain. 'Mugin, sound the charge.'
	A bone whistle blew, a piercing blast that caused Aelfir's head to ache. Aelfir charged down the mound, rushing beside Khojin into the teeth of the beasts' advance. The shock of the Northmen's charge overwhelmed the beasts at first, but the men were swiftly surrounded. The darkness grew around them as the fires died and the beasts howled, thirsting for blood.
	As the screams of the dying echoed in his ears, Aelfir called upon his god, 'Tchar. Tchar. Blood and souls for you. Blood and souls for the Old One of the Mound!'
	Khojin roared aloud, 'Tchar! By my oath to you, send me the Fire of Transformation in my hour of need!'
	Golden mouths opened in Khojin's dark skin and in his silver armour. The mouths sang a strange song in no tongue Aelfir knew, and from them a golden fire began to flow, spilling onto the earth around Khojin and rising about the embattled men. The strength of the beasts seemed to fail in the golden fire and the warband took new heart. Ulla the shieldmaiden laughed aloud, and recklessly ran to Khojin to embrace him.
	Aelfir felt the eye of Tchar upon him in that place as men fell about him, and he cut down beast after beast. As the blood of man and beast mingled on the mound, he saw the souls of the beasts and of men shining forth like blue light under their skins. And he saw from the corner of his eye a dark shape moving among the slain, with mad blue eyes, crouching to chew upon the fallen before the souls flew from their flesh. A daemon walks among us, he thought.
	The bone whistle shrilled again, and Aelfir winced in pain. From the summit of the mound Khojin's Tarkhal riders charged, plainsmen of the eastern steppes riding wildly down upon the beasts. Kitsa, Aelfir's beloved, rode at the head of the riders with her black hair flying like a flag, crashing into the beasts and scattering them, riding them down among the stones. As the golden fire faded and darkness fell over the battlefield, the Tarkhals screamed their triumph.
	Three days later the warband gathered at the mouth of a great cave under high cliffs. A ramshackle wall of wood and bone, adorned with tattered banners of gold and blue, blocked the mouth of the cave. Dead men hung from the wall, their blond hair flowing with the banners in the breeze that drove a cold smell of rot against the banners of the warband. Overhead, eagles soared in the clear blue sky. Aelfir sat on his borrowed horse uneasily, tensing as the grey backed away from the wall, lifting its hooves high from the sucking mud of the track. He did not understand what had happened to his home.
	'Aelfir.' Khojin said, 'when we left the south lands and followed the call of the gods to Middenheim, my people and I were lordless and landless. You called us to join you, here in the north, promising wide lands and a safe dwelling where we might gather our strength to go south again. You and I are blood brothers, and I have given you my sister, Kitsa, but I do not think I would have brought my people here had I known what was waiting.'
	The two men turned their horses from the wall towards the waiting warband. The tribesmen sat on horseback, loosely gathered about their banners under the looming Tarkhal wagons. Chained behind the wagons slaves sat huddled in their misery, men and women dressed in rags with bare and bleeding feet.
	Khojin cried aloud, 'Tarkhals! Hear me! Aelfir has brought us to this place, and Tchar has blessed his path! Though the hold here looks grim, we will find shelter from the winter with his father, Orn, and gather our strength again!'
	The mass of the Tarkhal riders, young men with the broad faces and narrow eyes of the eastern steppes, screamed repeatedly, throwing back their heads and shrieking their approval of their chieftain. They wore black beards and greased their long black hair with fat, and red cloaks hung over their bare chests. The Ornings, sullen and pale, blond of hair and wrapped in furs, sat silently, unsure of the home they had sought for so long.
	The warband entered the city, passing through a gap in the wall. They grew grim as they heard strange cries echo among the longhouses. The staves that made up the house walls had been warped into strange shapes and the shingles on the roofs bore half formed faces. As they rode down the empty streets, Khojin peered at the runes scrawled upon the wooden buildings. 'Mighty magic was done here.' he said to Aelfir, 'but for good or ill I cannot tell. These runes should channel the raw power of the gods into the very city itself, but, why?'
	A cry came from the Tarkhal scouts. A rider galloped up to Khojin. 'Lord, there are still men in the city! But they are strange, mad, and they show the touch of the gods upon their bodies.'
	'Where?' asked Khojin.
	'Did they speak?' asked Aelfir. 'Was there a winged man among them?'
	'We saw no winged man.' said the scout. 'They were naked but for rags, even the women among them. They stood upon the roofs of the longhouses and spoke in words we could not understand. We feared them, so we fled.'
	'Batu you dog!' Khojin shouted. 'Lead us to them!'
	Khojin drove Batu before him, beating him with the flat of his sword. When they reached the other scouts they galloped down the dirt lanes of the city. Aelfir, a poor rider, was hard pressed to keep up.
	'Khojin!' he cried realizing where they were. 'Beware! We draw near the river and the fields of the dead!'
	The Tarkhals clattered to a halt before a narrow bridge over a dark, swift flowing river. As Aelfir forced his mount to stop beside them he saw on the far side of the water men and women he recognized as kin walking deeper into fields of bones. Scattered across the fields were corpses tied upright to stakes, adorned in armour and bright robes - the old lords of his tribe. Aelfir's kinsmen moved as if in a trance, wandering among the bones, singing in weird, high voices.
	As the riders sat in silence, a harsh and grating voice spoke from behind them, 'Leave them, the gods have taken their minds.'
	Aelfir looked up to his father in the high seat, masked and hooded, covered in great robes that hid all, and wondered what had gone so wrong. His father was speaking to Khojin about the runes he had scrawled on the longhouses.
	'By the power of those runes and the storm of the gods I have joined to my city,' Orn said. 'I shall endure as long as it shall stand.'
	'But Orn,' Khojin said, 'what has happened to your people?'
	'The power of the ritual was too great,' Orn said. 'The storm destroyed their minds. I alone remain, but you shall be my new people. The Ornings and the Tarkhals shall join and my city will be full of life again. Khojin, take an Orning maiden and make her your bride. Aelfir, marry a Tarkhal maiden. I hear you have one already picked out.'
	The next day Aelfir sat in a daze as the tribe feasted. He remembered the wedding ceremony that had taken place that morning, sanctified by the sacrifice of the nine gifts of Tchar. The corpses of the men who were the last and most important of Tchar's gifts sat at a table a little way from him, cleaned and arrayed in finery, a hearty spread of mead and food arrayed before them.
	'As you clasp hands together above this fire,' Orn had intoned while Ulla and Khojin and Aelfir and Kitsa stood before him, 'remember your oaths to each other, spoken and sealed before this high seat, and this holy flame of Tchar.'
	A sudden silence broke his reverie. A tall young man in a grey cloak with an unsheathed sword and glaring blue eyes was striding down the length of the hall. 'Orn!' the swordsman cried. 'Orn! I have come for you!'
	None dared approach as the warrior stalked to the high seat. Aelfir, at the last moment, leapt up but was dashed aside. Orn stood in silence as the warrior ripped aside his robes, showing withering, discoloured flesh and deformed stumps where the wings Aelfir remembered had once stretched.
	'Tchar's mercy is gone, and his judgment has come!' said the warrior. He turned to the staring tribesmen, saying, 'I give this gift to the one who can claim it.' and drove the sword into Orn's chest, leaving it there.
	As the warrior strode away, the men rose from their seats to slay him, but they stopped in wonder and terror at the transformation that struck Orn. Orn's flesh grew warped and twisted, his bones and muscle straining at his stretching, tearing skin. Orn fell onto all fours and began to stumble about the room, moaning piteously.
	Khojin said, 'The sword is a gift from Tchar. Back, all of you. I will take the sword from this spawn.'
	But as Khojin approached the spawn suddenly tensed and lashed out with its forelegs, striking Khojin to the ground. The Tarkhals ran to aid their chosen, but none dared to take the sword until Aelfir approached.
	As Aelfir drew near the spawn grew quiet. He stepped forward and laid his hand upon the hilt of the sword. He saw out of the corner of his eye a low, dark shadow that seemed to look on with malevolent approval. The sword seemed to fall out into his hand.
	'How?' Khojin snarled in wonder, 'But, it is said the were know their own.'
	The twisted shape shuddered. Orn's slack face, with its too-wide mouth began to mutter and mumble a continuous stream of noise that rose into a high wailing. The spawn forced its way through the doors of the great hall and fled, wailing, into the darkness of the city.
	'Aelfir, what price would you ask for that sword?' Khojin demanded. 'Whatever it is, I can pay. Do you want gold? Slaves? Horses? Warriors for your warband?'
	'I have what I want,' Aelfir said.
	'As Tchar wills it,' Khojin sneered, limping to the high seat. His wounds were bandaged and a cup was set before him, but his eyes never left Aelfir. Ulla went to Khojin and embraced him, happily whispering into his ear, but his eyes remained cold as he absently stroked her golden hair.
	The warriors of the Tarkhals and the Ornings gathered about Aelfir and Kitsa, admiring the blade and guessing about its origins.
	'Daemon-forged,' a gaunt Tarkhal said.
	'Yah,' said a badly scarred Orning. 'A blade out of the sagas of old.'
	'I will make my own saga wielding it,' Aelfir declared.
	'If I had a blade like that, I would never sell it,' said Mugin, 'but saying no to a chosen is a good way to end up dead.'
	'With this blade,' said Aelfir, 'I can say what I want to anyone I want. Come, Kitsa, the old women have prepared an old hall for me near the river.'
	'Let me say goodbye to Khojin and Ulla first,' Kitsa replied.
	As Kitsa walked up the hall to the high seat, Khojin's eyes seized upon her. When she reached the high seat, Kitsa told Khojin and Ulla that she and Aelfir were leaving. 'So soon?' Ulla laughed. 'You're married now, you can do it all the time. Why hurry?'
	Kitsa blushed, and laughed. Khojin asked Ulla for a moment alone with Kitsa. After Ulla went to find a drink and say goodbye to Aelfir, Khojin turned to Kitsa and whispered urgently, 'Kitsa, you must make him give me that sword!'
	'Khojin,' she said. 'He never will.'
	'Would you be a widow?'
	'What do you mean?'
	'I mean there cannot be two masters in a house, two chieftains in a tribe. The blade is a mighty sign of Tchar's favour. If I am to lead these people, I must have it. If he will not give me the blade I must take it and he must die.'
	'Khojin,' she said. 'No. I swore an oath to him.'
	'Yes,' he said, 'you are a Tarkhal, bound to me by blood and clan. I swore an oath, too, but he is an outsider. Already he has defied me. Tonight you must kill him and get me the sword. If you do not, there will be war between us, Aelfir and I, and your hands will not be clean of the blood that is shed.'
	'Khojin, I cannot.'
	'You must.'
	Kitsa rejoined Aelfir at the door, her face downcast. 'Kitsa, don't look so joyous,' he said. 'The other girls will be jealous.'
	She broke into tears.
	The old women of the tribe lit their way to Aelfir's hall with raised torches, singing bawdy songs until they ducked beneath the low lintel of his door. But when they were left alone, and the fire sank low in the hearth, Kitsa was inconsolable and Aelfir was unsure. They slept apart. He gave her the bed and slept on a bench next to the fire.
	As the night drew on, Kitsa awoke. She crept from her bed silently and stood above Aelfir as he slept. The dying light of the fire caught upon a gleam of steel in her left hand. She raised the dagger, stopped, and raised it again. She shook, put the dagger away, and paced before her sleeping lover. The fire was only embers when she heard harsh whispers at the door of the hall. She saw that Aelfir stirred and with a look of fear took the sword from where it lay by his side.
	Kitsa turned to the door and put her hand upon the latch. When she opened the door Khojin was there with many Tarkhal tribesmen bearing torches. 'Khojin, what are you doing?' she asked.
	'What you fear to do,' he said.
	'No. Here is the sword. Take it and go.'
	At that moment, Aelfir awoke. He saw his sword being passed through the door and leapt to his feet. 'Kitsa, no!' he shouted, grabbing her by her black hair and throwing her back from the door. Her head struck a corner of the bed and she lay very still.
	Khojin howled when he saw Kitsa pulled back from the door. 'Orning, give me back my sister!'
	'Give me my sword, thief!' Aelfir replied.
	Aelfir heard Khojin speak to his men in the language of the Tarkhals. He could not tell what was said, but moments later a man's shadow darkened the door and a Tarkhal warrior ducked under the low lintel. For a moment the man was vulnerable and Aelfir brought his fist down hard on the back of the man's head, knocking him to the floor. Aelfir quickly took the man's sword and slew him, crying out, 'Khojin, this one dies for Tchar!'
	As he said it the room darkened and he felt a presence. A low, dark shape seemed to stand in the farthest corner from the fire. He caught the gleam of eyes and heard whispering, malevolent, gleeful chattering at the edge of hearing.
	More men tried to force their way in through the low door. In their rush they hindered each other, and four more fell before his blade. The shape in the corner grew larger and more distinct and the chattering grew louder.
	The Tarkhals tried again. Aelfir slew three more warriors in a rush, but was about to be overwhelmed when the Tarkhals turned in fear and fled. He struck down one last warrior and howled to Khojin, 'Nine gifts for Tchar!' In response torches were thrown in through the open door, setting the bedding alight. Aelfir ran to Kitsa, and crouching, gathered her into his arms.
	Then he felt a presence at his side and turned. A gaunt and naked man with mad blue eyes crouched over the fallen Tarkhals, grinning with blood-stained fangs. Suddenly, Aelfir saw the shadow had taken temporary form in that body, and knew that a daemon had come to devour the souls of the slain.
	'Who are you?' he asked.
	'Some call me Jormunrekkr Ornsbane.'
	'You were the one in the hall and on the mound.'
	'Yes.'
	The fire rose higher and the daemon laughed.
	Aelfir shook Kitsa, trying to wake her, but she lay still. He felt the back of her head, finding blood. 'No.' he said. 'No. No. No.'
	'Yes.' Jormunrekkr laughed, fading into a shadow, disappearing. 'You are a fool, Aelfir.'
	The walls were burning. At the door he saw the Tarkhals moving, waiting for the chance to kill him when the smoke and heat forced him out. Aelfir pulled the bench he slept on to the hearth and picked up an axe from the fireside. Standing on the bench, Aelfir climbed onto the mantel of the hearth and stood up. Holding his breath against the smoke, he hacked repeatedly at the ceiling near the chimney, desperately trying to break out on to the roof.
	Aelfir succeeded in breaking a hole through the roof, scattering the shingles to the street below. The stone of the mantel grew hot and Aelfir tried to force his way through the gap he had made. He became stuck with only one arm and his head through. As the fire rose inside the hall he felt his clothes catch fire. In panic, he broke through and leapt, burning, to the roof of a nearby house.
	Aelfir ran, burning, along the roof of the empty house. His cloak and shirt were alight and across half his face the flames had seared his skin to crimson, closing one eye. He heard Khojins men below him, the thud of their feet in the dirt of the lane and the clank of their armour kept pace with his flight. In desperation, he leapt to another roof, losing his footing and landing hard on the shingles.
	He staggered up and continued running. He heard shouts and the sound of men climbing around him. In his pain there was room in him for only one thought. 'The river.' he gasped through scorched lips as he ran across the roof tops.
	Ulla swung up to the roof, blocking the way, shouting, 'Aelfir! Kitsa is dead! Stay and pay the blood debt you owe!'
	She stood before him with a sword in her hand, but the pain of the flames drove him blindly on. At the last moment he saw the blade and threw himself to one side, dodging her blow but crashing into her and in his haste carrying her off her feet. For a moment they hung in the darkness, burning like the daemons themselves, and then suddenly they were gone, crashing into the icy black water of the river that flowed between the houses of the living Ornings and the tombs of their dead fathers.
	When Aelfir's head at last arose above the rushing surface of the river he found he was not alone, something clung to him under the black water. He howled in fright, briefly lost in childhood tales of the clutching things that made the river their home. Then in the pain of his burns he remembered his flight from Khojin and Ulla barring his way and he realized what he must do.
	He knotted his fingers in the silky hair he found floating just below the river's surface and kept her head down. Her hands clawed at him, raking his face. He did not know how long in the blackness he held her under before her struggles stilled and he freed himself of her grip.
	As she slid away from him in the dark he saw witch-lights rising from the depths toward them, illuminating the terror on her face. In panic, he thrashed to the shore, hauling himself out of the black water among the bones scattered about the tombs on the far side of the river.
	He crawled away from the river. In the water he had lost most of the rags the fire had left him. He was naked and covered with burns. He shook with cold and he could not stand. He knew that he was dying. He saw a fire before him, bones burning among the tombs and he crawled towards it.
	Reaching the fire, he rolled on to his back, gasping, unable to continue. When he looked about him he recognized the twisted faces of the Ornings driven mad by his father's ritual looking down at him, and among them he saw the ice-blue eyes of his father's slayer.
	'You are weak, Aelfir,' Jormunrekkr said, 'weak and a fool. And you are dying. It is fitting. You are the last of a house that failed.'
	'We failed in nothing.' Aelfir gasped. 'Always we kept the rites, always in our land Tchar's words were spoken and the eagles were fed. Where did we fail?'
	'When the storm raged and the powers called the men of the north down to rend the world the Ornings betrayed their master. Where was Orn when the armies of the gods met at the southland city?'
	'I was there!' Aelfir said. 'I led men to the Wolf City for Tchar!'
	'You were not chosen. Until that time you had lived your life out of the sight of the gods. How could you take the place of your father? And yet he sent you south to die. He heard whispers in the sea of souls, voices that promised him immortality if he could bend the power of the storm to his will. Tchar promised him only death on the walls of the Wolfburg. He made his choice. Now he will have immortality, running with the spawn.'
	'Why did Tchar want my father to die? Why does the Eagle kill his chosen?'
	Jormunrekkr's eyes flashed. 'Look into the fire, Aelfir.'
	Painfully, Aelfir turned toward the fire. It grew until he saw nothing else for a time, and then he saw the hound, a hound the size of a mountain, running ceaselessly, drawing ever nearer, over a field of corpses. Next he saw the carrion crow, a rotting thing greater than a longhouse, digging in the world's grave for the flesh of men. Last he saw the serpent, coiling in the depths of the sea, rising to devour the land. From these visions Aelfir recoiled in horror.
	'Now you see,' Jormunrekkr said, 'against these the Eagle raises his chosen, and bids them live or die according to his need.'
	'You came for my gifts on the mound, and in the burning hall,' Aelfir said. 'Give me a chance to win back Tchar's favour. Let me serve the Eagle once more.'
	'Will you keep the faith your father forsook?' Jormunrekkr demanded. 'Can you?'
	'Give me strength. I will do it.'
	'Your father feared to die. Show me you are unafraid. You know the pain of burning, here is a fire. Would you be chosen? Go into it.'
	Aelfir struggled to raise himself from the earth. 'I am too weak to stand.' 'Crawl.' 'I will die.'
	'Tchar does not promise long life to his chosen.' Aelfir struggled to his knees, feeling burned skin stretch and crack. He swayed, too weak to hold himself up, and a low moan escaped his lips. He grew quiet, closed his eyes, and fell forward into the fire.
	His hair caught fire. A shriek burst from his lips. The pain from his burns returned a hundredfold. He cried out, 'Tchar! Tchar!' and the fire felt like cool water on his skin. He opened his eyes, and he saw that the flames were blue. He looked for Jormunrekkr and saw a vast dark shape with many blue eyes, eyes that burned like stars.
	A great weariness came upon him. He lay down peacefully. He looked for his mad kinsmen and saw them standing about in reverent silence, their souls shining through the veil of the flesh. It seemed to him that they wore crowns of flame. And then the crowns warped, and the colours multiplied, and he saw the horrors of Tchar unfolding, rising like alien flowers from the heads of his kinsmen. He fell into a dreamless sleep.
	Aelfir awoke filled with new strength. He rose lightly to his feet, marvelling at the strange new gold-flecked skin that had grown during his sleep to replace his burned flesh, the new thickness of his arms and legs, and the width of his chest. Out of the litter of the dead he pulled some blue rags and bound them about his waist as a kilt.
	A short distance away he saw his mad kinsmen playing with the fire and knew them for what they were, daemonhosts, blessed for a time with the companionship of the children of the uttermost north, the daemons of Chaos.
	Aelfir approached the fire. The daemonhosts turned to watch him and withdrew from the flames. He saw both the daemons and the spirits of his kin, and also their shared flesh. The daemons began to show their shapes in the flesh they wore, growing claws and tentacles, opening new eyes and mouths.
	Aelfir stopped at the fire and made a torch out of rags and bones. He lit it, and raised it above his head. 'Hear me.' he called, 'my kinsmen. Hear me you Shining Ones, you Blessed Ones. You wander lost. Come to the halls of my people. I invite you in. Once you got offerings, now there will be red blood, and fire, and the walls of the world will thin.'
	He turned and walked with firm strides back towards the city of the Ornings. Drawn like moths to a flame, the blessed ones followed.
	He crossed a narrow bridge over the swiftly flowing river and thought for a second he saw his father's ruined form running in the lanes between the longhouses. He paused only for a moment, then set fire to the nearest house. The blessed ones capered madly about the blaze and made torches of their own from the trash in the silent street. With unnatural, shrill voices they piped a song he could almost understand, then scattered, running madly through the city.
	The fire quickly spread. Stave and shingle burned as the fire leapt from house to house, but always in the wake of Aelfir and the daemonhosts. The Tarkhals and the remaining Ornings fled from their burning long-houses only to be pulled down and slain, or cast back into the fires. Smoke laden with the stench of burning flesh rolled through the streets. The roar of the flames and the screams of the dying were loud in Aelfir's ears when at last he came to Orn's great hall.
	Before the open doors Khojin stood alone as the last of his people fled and died under the claws of the daemon-hosts. The flames roared on the shingles and roof beams crashed within the hall. Daemonhosts capered about Khojin, mocking him in piping tones. His silver armour gave back the flames in reflection. He seemed like a man on fire. In his hand was the sword Ornsbane.
	The daemonhosts parted to let Aelfir through. 'Now, Khojin of the Tarkhals,' he cried. 'Tchar has turned against you and your life is at its end. You betrayed me but could not slay me, I won free of the burning hall, and now I have returned out of the darkness to claim my sword.'
	'As Tchar wills it,' said Khojin, 'but I will never submit to you and I may yet have my revenge for my sister and my bride. Die!' Red fire leapt from his outstretched hand, engulfing Aelfir for an instant before disappearing, leaving Aelfir unmarked.
	Aelfir laughed, 'No fire of yours can harm me now.'
	Aelfir leapt forward, catching Khojin's wrist as he attempted to swing his sword and punching him twice in the breastplate of his armour, breaking ribs.
	Khojin fell to his knees and crawled away from Aelfir, fighting for breath and trying to remove his damaged armour.
	Aelfir picked up the sword. Despite the fire, a darkness grew about him. He heard daemonic voices calling for Orn, his father, and knew they must be satisfied. Using the sword as a conduit, he reached out to his father, compelling him to come forth out of the burning city and obey the blade that made him a spawn.
	Orn's twisted form appeared. Lurching out of the flames, Orn fell upon Khojin, devouring him.
	In the burning door of the great hall a shape of shadow waited, watching with ice-blue eyes. Aelfir saw the daemonhosts gather about Orn as he fed, and saw Orn drawn, howling, into the flames. He heard Jormunrekkr's sardonic voice say, 'Ready the benches and measure the mead, for a hero comes to the Daemon's Hall.'