England 888 AD

Alfred was tired. It had been a long, hard war, and though he had won it, he had barely rested since. He knew that the peace would not last long. For an English king, he had learned, it never did. There was always another war. 

He had spent his entire reign defending his homeland and his faith against the hordes of Norse barbarians from across the sea. For nearly a century, they had been arriving in fleets of longships, raiding England’s coastline and laying siege to its villages and towns, their incursions growing more daring—and more bloody—with each passing year. When Alfred was still but a boy, Danish invaders had established permanent footholds across England, seizing all of East Anglia and Mercia, two of the largest kingdoms in the land. Danish power spread so far and wide after that, and so quickly, that within three short years only Wessex remained unbroken. The last free, sovereign kingdom in all England. Alfred’s kingdom. 

He was not King then, nor did he have any wish to be, but he would soon have the crown thrust upon him. The Norse wasted no time in attacking Wessex. Alfred’s King and elder brother was for a short time successful in repelling the invaders. But after that, defeat followed defeat, and when the King met his death shortly after his army was routed at Reading, his crown passed to Alfred, his sole heir. And so it was that by his twenty-first year, Alfred had become England’s only remaining Anglo-Saxon king, and in all likelihood its last. 

For a short while, Alfred had considered surrender, and with good reason: the Norsemen were notorious for their brutality and lack of mercy. Other English kings, those who had not fled, or who had refused to yield, had been tortured to death when their walls inevitably fell. The Danish king at the head of the invading force, a godless thug named Guthrum, was driving deeper into the heart of Alfred’s beloved Wessex, sacking every town and village before him. Alfred’s army was forced to retreat as far west as Somerset, where the seclusion of its tidal marshes afforded him time to regroup. Summoning men from the neighboring counties, he set them to building a fortress from which they could rally and stage attacks. Tired of running and hiding, Alfred finally began to take the fight to the enemy. 

He defeated the Norse in battle at Ethandun, driving them all the way back to their stronghold and laying siege to it until he starved the heathens into surrender. It was a decisive victory, but the Norse were still too many and too widespread to be driven utterly from the land. Tired of bloody battles and dead men in numbers more than he could count, Alfred offered armistice to his hated enemy, Guthrum: if the Norse agreed to lay down their arms, they would be granted their own lands in the east. The English territory they already occupied would be formally recognized as the Danelaw, a kingdom in which Guthrum and his people could—and would be expected to—live in peace. And so it was agreed. And so Wessex was saved. 

Throughout his kingdom, Alfred’s subjects, grateful to have been spared the horrors of a Norse occupation, began to call him Alfred the Great. It was a title that did not sit well with him, for he did not see greatness within himself. He had studied the life and campaigns of that other “Great,” Alexander III—the Macedonian king who had been driven by a firm conviction in his own greatness, one so deeply held he believed it was his destiny to conquer the entire world. And so he had; by Alfred’s age, Alexander had vanquished the vast Persian army, once thought invincible, and had gone on to preside over one of the greatest empires the world had ever seen, ruling all of Asia Minor from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. Alfred, by contrast, had barely managed to hang on to his own little kingdom. Alexander had famously never lost a battle, while Alfred had lost many. Far too many. 

He would not lose another, he told himself. In the years following the Danish accord, Alfred refused to grow complacent. He went to London, a city sacked and ruined during the Norse invasions, and restored it to life, buttressing it against future attack. Alfred’s own royal palace at Winchester was fortified similarly, as were villages and towns throughout Wessex, until every man and woman within his kingdom’s borders could feel secure that the horrors of recent years would never visit them again. 

Everyone except Alfred. Wessex was as safe as he could make it, and yet he did not sleep easily. Every messenger and scout brought fresh reports of Danish naval activity, fresh rumors of a coming invasion. And now, Guthrum, long rumored ill, was said to be on his deathbed. Though the Danish king was a barbarian, Alfred had come to respect him—and more importantly, to trust him. In the years since the armistice, Guthrum had always held his word to keep the peace. But it was known that many ambitious and hot-tempered men of war among the Danelaw Norse were waiting to take power after Guthrum’s death. Men who would have no respect for the treaty their predecessor had honored. And the only thing Alfred feared more than another Danish invasion from across the sea was a Danish uprising from within England’s own borders. 

And so here he sat, on his throne at Winchester, as uneasily as he ever had. He had sent word to his military commanders throughout the kingdom to be on close watch. After all, it took days for word to travel here from the Danelaw; for all Alfred knew, Guthrum might already be dead. Even now, as he sat here, Danish forces could be massing under some new king in preparation for an attack. But he had done all he could. Now all that was left to do was wait, and worry. 

“Your Majesty?” 

Alfred looked to the page standing before him; he had been so lost in thought he had not heard the boy approach. “What is it?” 

“The archbishop requests your presence in the courtyard,” said the page. “He says he has something you must see.” 

Alfred groaned. Aethelred, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the last man he wanted to see today, or any other day. Though Alfred cherished his Christian beliefs, he did not likewise cherish the man who was leader of his church. The archbishop had been inherited along with the rest of Alfred’s kingdom, and there was something about the man that had troubled him from the beginning. Had Alfred’s reign been one of peace, he likely would have moved to replace the prelate, but he had been too busy fighting a war against the Norse to also embroil himself in a battle with the church. In recent months, however, he had come to sorely regret having not done so, and never more so than at this moment. What Aethelred had to show him was certain to sour his appetite and send him to bed with nightmares. As if sleep was not hard enough to come by these days. Alfred gave the page a reluctant nod. “Tell him I will be there presently.” 

The page bowed low, then hurried away. Alfred sat a while longer before making his way to the courtyard. Whatever fresh horror Aethelred had in store for him, he was in no hurry to see it.

 ~ 

Five months ago, Aethelred had come to Alfred in feverish excitement. During the rebuilding of London, a common laborer had by chance discovered a cache of ancient Latin scrolls buried beneath the earth. The laborer brought them to his parish priest, who, so startled by what he saw within them, rode them to Canterbury himself that same day. 

Aethelred, too, recognized in the scrolls something remarkable the moment he saw them. They were old, so old that the Latin text they contained, some earlier, arcane form of the language, was barely understandable even by his most learned priests. But what they were able to translate both chilled Aethelred’s blood and excited him so he could scarcely keep his hands from shaking. The scrolls spoke of powers even more ancient than they. Of incantations and rites that could change the shape of flesh, create new life from old. Of the power to make any man who wielded it into a god. 

It took Aethelred and his most senior scholars months to decipher the text of all nine scrolls. When at last their work was finished, Aethelred brought it to Winchester and presented it to his King as a way to finally secure peace for all the English kingdoms—to annihilate the Danish threat, once and for all. When Alfred heard the archbishop’s promise that he could accomplish all this without a single drop of English blood spilled, he was intrigued; when he heard how Aethelred intended to do it, he did not know whether to be appalled or simply think the man mad. 

It took a demonstration for Aethelred to prove to his King that his mind had not taken leave. Aethelred had one of his curates bring forth a hog appropriated from the castle’s livestock. Alfred, and everyone at court that day, was at first amused to see the leashed pig pulling the hapless curate along by its leash as it sniffed the stone floor. Was this some kind of jest? At best, Alfred thought, Aethelred might embarrass himself before the entire royal court. Which would give Alfred just the excuse he needed to ease the man quietly from his seat at Canterbury and replace him with someone less irksome. The poor man had obviously been working too hard. It was time. The curate threw a half-eaten apple before the pig and backed away as the animal scarfed it down. Few noticed the look of pale dread on the young priest’s face as he retreated; all eyes were on the pig, a common beast running loose in this highest of halls. As the pig chewed greedily, Aethelred cautioned the royal guardsmen standing nearby to be at the ready, then threw back his arms with a flourish. Courtiers exchanged awkward glances; some of them giggled. This is already enough to finish him, Alfred thought to himself from his throne. The Primate of All England, waving his arms about like a court jester performing a conjuring trick. 

And then Aethelred began the incantation. The giggling stopped. So did the amused glances. All eyes were fixed on Aethelred as he mouthed the ancient words decrypted in Canterbury. The language was familiar, and yet not. What is that, some kind of Latin? Alfred wondered. Only one thing was certain: as Aethelred continued with the incantation, his voice slowly rising, a chill descended upon the room. Though none understood the words, every man and woman somehow knew that there was something wrong about them. As though they had come from a place not human. Several of those watching felt a strong urge to leave the room, and yet their feet would not carry them. They were rooted to the spot, paralyzed, unable to look away. 

The pig, who had been happily devouring the apple, suddenly dropped it. Its jaw went slack. Its head twisted and turned in an unnatural circular motion, as if tortured by some infernal sound only it could hear. It let out the most horrendous, piercing squeal, then fell sideways onto the floor, where it lay still. For a moment the room was eerily silent, all present rendered speechless by the bizarrely morbid display. Aethelred had, seemingly, killed this animal without laying so much as a hand on it. With the power of words alone. 

It took Alfred to break the silence. “I demand to know the meaning of this—” The pig squealed—louder than before—cutting Alfred’s words short. Then its body jolted back to life, writhing on the floor through a series of violent spasms. Some postmortem reflex? Alfred glanced up from the stricken beast to Aethelred and saw the broad grin spread across the archbishop’s face. As though full of delight in what he knew was to come next. 

Something burst from the belly of the pig, blood spraying across the floor. Several onlookers shrieked in dismay, and those standing closest backed away in revulsion as another protrusion erupted from within the pig’s body, then another, each glistening with dark, viscous blood as they unfolded and took form. Bony, jointed, stalk-like appendages, resembling the limbs of some monstrous insect, they slipped and slid across the smooth stone floor like the legs of a newborn calf trying to stand. 

And then the thing—it could no longer reasonably be called a pig—rose up on its six newly formed legs, each bristling with thick, fibrous hairs. The creature’s jaw unhinged and dropped wide, revealing a mouthful of sharply pointed fangs. The royal guardsmen drew their weapons and Alfred watched with grim fascination as the creature ambled forward. Its eyes were wild and bloodshot, searching the room, seemingly half-blind and in the grip of some rabid fever. 

The beast lifted its head, opened its jaw wide, and howled—an appalling sound that defied nature and raised gooseflesh on the arms of every person present. The callow young guardsman who stood closest to the beast moved to strike it down with his sword. Before Aethelred could warn him off, the guardsman’s blade came down on one of the beast’s spider-like legs, releasing a spray of black blood that splattered his tunic. As the beast screamed, the guard tried to draw back his blade for another blow, but it was stuck fast in the bone and gristle of the beast’s leg. Wounded and enraged, the pig-thing wheeled, wresting the sword from the guard’s hand. Before he could withdraw, the beast lurched forward and its two front legs closed around his waist like pincers. 

As the young man flailed helplessly, his comrades came to his aid, some trying to pull him free of the creature’s grip, others hacking at it with their swords, the screams of the beast and of the guardsman in its grip mingling in a hellish cacophony. Then the creature’s pincers closed tight and the young guardsman vomited blood as his body was sliced in two. The beast threw both lifeless halves of the man aside, trying now to defend itself against the other guards, who were stabbing and slashing at it furiously. But it was too late; the thing had sustained several grievous wounds and was bleeding out quickly. Weakened and dying, it finally toppled, gasping, blood bubbling up in its throat. The guard captain moved in, sword drawn high, and with all his strength brought the blade down, taking the monster’s head clean off. For a few moments more it continued to move, its chest heaving, its arachnid legs twitching reflexively. And then, finally, it was still. 

His face spattered with the blood of the beast, the guard captain glared at Aethelred. Alfred stepped down from his throne and marched across the room to the priest, who had not stopped smiling during the whole bloody episode, and who smiled still. 

“Did you enjoy the demonstration, Sire?” asked the archbishop. 

“I did not,” hissed the King through gritted teeth, his fists clenched. 

Aethelred’s smile arched wider. “The Danes will enjoy it even less, I suspect.”