by Ben Galley
Beyond her quivering hands, the ground fell away. She watched the snow scatter in the wind and dance around her fingers. The roar behind her was a whistle to her ears. Only her breath could be heard, shallow and short. The iron waves below came at their leisure, unperturbed by the matters of gods and daemons and mortals. Fearless, ceaseless. Never-ending. Mithrid stared at it while her eyes dropped.
The glint of fire kept them open. A flame, soaring through the haze of snow far out to sea. Another chased it. A large shadow lurked between the haze.
‘Farden…’ Mithrid croaked.
The mage’s voice made no sense. ‘She found us! That wonderful, crazy woman found us!’
Before Mithrid could push herself up, she felt cold metal fingers grab her by the collar and haul her up. It was Farden. The urgency in his face looked like madness. It must have been madness, for he forced them towards the edge of the cliff. The sea’s maw opened.
‘Farden!’ cried the god behind them, wreathed in fire.
Mithrid howled as Farden threw them over the edge. Like the ground beneath her, all trust in him vanished in that second. She reached for his throat even then.
A surface of solid muscle and fur knocked the breath from her lungs. The keening eagle’s cry brought reality crashing back to her.
Ilios.
Mithrid’s fear of heights and all things winged disappeared entirely in the face of her startled relief. She seized Ilios’ fur in a tight grip, and, as the gryphon swooped for the ruined castle at a violent degree, she grinned.
‘The fire! The signal!’ Mithrid yelled to the mage, perched in front of her and grimly clinging on. ‘You saw it! Scalussen came for us after all!’
‘Trust in Elessi to disobey me!’ cried Farden.
But Malvus still lived, raining star after falling star upon Belerod, Peskora, and Tartavor’s armies.
The lurching of the gryphon ripped her attention away. Ilios rolled over a low beam, following the scene of dragon or minotaur, no doubt. Relief withered. Fear came rushing back as Ilios barrelled through corridors barely wider than his wing, and in a somersault, plummeted down a spiral staircase. As Mithrid became convinced the gryphon would dash them to entrails on the stone floor, he flared his wings and swooped into a cavern of a hall. Broken forges lay beneath them. Statues crowded around pillars. Ilios wasted no time in exploring, and before Mithrid could make sense of that hall, they had darted into another and another, where Fleetstar waited with her head stuck down a hole in the floor. She roared at the sight of the gryphon, whose claws scraped patterns on the flagstones as he skidded to a halt. Mithrid and Farden tumbled across his wing, and almost fell straight into a pit that was the fatal kind of deep.
Mithrid must have hit her head harder than expected. Durnus and Warbringer were stood below before a circular door of crystal. Yet somehow they were not on the floor, but they stood upon the wall. Even the flames of their torches were slanted horizontal.
‘Jump!’ yelled Durnus.
Mithrid spat in disbelief. ‘Fuck that!’
Farden’s penchant for hurling himself from precipices knew no bounds, but as she watched, he did not fall down, but to the side, crash-landing on his back with a wheeze. In the pale light shining through the crystal door, the mage’s hair and beard looked grey. It jarred her, but not so much as the pit’s bizarre spell. Mithrid almost vomited, even though she had managed to land on all fours.
With her hand under Farden’s arm, they ran to reach the others. Durnus had the crystal key halfway into an elaborate portal. Spiral script ran around the door in concentric rings.
The sound of a whip cracking broke her concentration. Gryphon and dragon roared above as Loki came barrelling through the air. He slammed into both the mage and Mithrid with the force of a catapult.
Though she struggled like a sabrecat, Mithrid felt inexorable hands pin hers, and cold steel at her neck.
‘Slowly now, Mithrid,’ Loki whispered in that sickly voice of his.
She arose gradually with the god close at her back, the knife firmly in his grip, and the others’ weapons pointing at her.
‘I’m sorry, Farden,’ Mithrid muttered. The mage visibly seethed.
Durnus stretched out a hand, but no spell blossomed. He tried again, wincing. Voidaran made no noise when Warbringer twirled it. Even Loki seemed momentarily perturbed when he met Durnus’ empty hand with his own.
‘Well! A curse lies on this place, it would seem,’ he whispered. ‘No magick can exist here. It should make for an interesting resolution to this stalemate, should it not? All of us on equal footing, at last?’ Loki chuckled. ‘And so here we are, at the end of your long road. After all your toil, you still end up doing my bidding and landing in my clutches.’
‘You vulture!’ Warbringer boomed.
‘Open the door, my good Durnus, or I shall slit this girl’s throat and that will be the end of her story. Let’s finally see what you worked so hard for. Let’s see Gunnir together, shall we?’
Durnus didn’t move.
‘Do it,’ Farden ordered. Mithrid caught the surreptitious shake of his head and kept still. She remembered what the minotaur had taught her. ‘Do what he says.’
‘Wise words, oh King.’
In her ear, Loki whispered again.
‘Be good, Mithrid, and you just might live to see your friends again before I wipe them from the map.’
Durnus pushed the crystal key into the mouth of the keyhole to the faint musical scrape of glass. Muttering something to himself that sounded suspiciously like a prayer, he turned the handle and elicited a resonating boom. Light rippled through the intricate glass of the door as it came apart, splitting along faint lines that had been invisible before. Whatever magick of machinery moved the panes, it was slow and silent.
Farden had no time to marvel. He watched every shift of Loki’s gaze. He matched every tread of his foot, never dropping his Khandri sword for a moment even though his arms burned.
Beyond the door, the tunnel continued down to a door made of what looked to be bone. Rings of ribs and jawbones decorated this one. Ghoulish faces stared down at them. The script between them had become ever more frantic and imperfect, now chiselled as if in a hurry. At the door’s centre, a star of knuckles, and a keyhole for the second key.
Loki couldn’t resist working his serpent’s tongue. Why it wasn’t forked, Farden did not know. He pushed faster, and Loki sped up, too. It was all he could do not to lunge at him. Loki was so close, and without his magick…
Farden felt the cough rising in his throat. He fought it back but to no avail. Pain lanced across his chest, almost bending him double. Farden spat to the side, spotting the stone with dark blood.
‘My, my. I have never seen you so weakened, Farden. The road has ravaged you. Ravaged you all, it seems, has it not? I see Aspala is not amongst you. A pity. I liked her.’
Mithrid struggled briefly before remembering the steel at her neck.
Above – or at least behind – them, dull booms could be heard, and Ilios’ plaintive whistling. Daemons and spells were beginning to fall on the castle.
‘You and Durnus have changed much,’ Loki continued unfazed. ‘Weary in contrasting ways. What happened to your magick, Farden, or the blessings of your armour? Don’t tell me… you’re broken? By the gods, what a shame. No wonder I can see more years on your face. You’re the Forever King no more, it seems. And Durnus. I see the daemonblood in those raw eyes of yours and feel the shadow in your veins. And after all the times Farden warned you not to engage with soul magick and necromancy. Can you be called a vampyre, or even a man, any more? You are no less a mongrel than Malvus.’
With fangs bared and wielding heroic restraint, Durnus put the second key to work. Once again, the door split into six segments. A foul breath of ancient air leaked forth with a sigh as the bones slid into the rock.
‘One more key. One more door,’ whispered Loki.
The final door lay another stretch ahead. No statues waite
d here. More faces, not of bone, but carved black obsidian. Each was as tall as a man, in varying stages of frozen screams. Their glasslike faces looked liquid in the torchlight. Their wide and pained eyes seemed to follow them.
Farden could see breath before him. Cold misted his armour. Colder were Loki’s words.
‘I wonder how you lost your magick. Most curious, unless you’ve developed a taste for nevermar once again, Farden?’
‘No such luck. Irminsul’s fire was fierce.’
‘I would rather wager it was our good Mithrid here.’
‘And I’ll strangle the magick and life out of you the moment your back is turned,’ she hissed.
‘Fine advice that I shall listen to. But I think I’ve stumbled on the answer, no? Who else could do such a thing? No witch. No daemon. No shadow of a god.’
‘Oh, how I will enjoy cutting your tongue from your mouth, Loki,’ Farden showed his teeth in a mock smile. The god’s poison flowed so easily he had grown almost used to it. He and Loki did not break their stare, not even while Durnus produced the final key. Its rough obsidian matched the circular door, indistinguishable from the walls around it. A final, hastily scribble of a warning circled the keyhole.
Loki read it aloud. ‘ “Your screaming end awaits”,’ he said with a confident chuckle. ‘Then what are we waiting for, my friends?’
Durnus gave the mage a look so blank as to be worrying. ‘Farden?’
Farden took a deep breath. ‘Open it.’
Still, the vampyre hesitated. Loki drew blood from Mithrid’s neck. ‘I’ll slice her head clean off right here, Durnus. Open it, like Farden said. Open it!’
Durnus bowed his head as he entered and turned the key. Another boom shook the walls and stone under their feet. This door did not split evenly, but cracked along jagged lines. Splinters of obsidian were spat to the floor. Most disconcertingly, the rumbling and quivering did not stop.
With bated breath, he watched the door shatter before them. Icy breath stole his away. A void of a room awaited them, reticent to give up its shadows to the torches. At its centre lay a shaft of light that no sun or moon or star gave. Hovering at its centre, held by no altar or chain, lay the Spear of Gunnir.
A sinuous curve of ornate steel and silver, frost millennia old decorated its metal. It floated an inch from the flagstones and spun slightly in its column of light. Slightly taller than Farden, the spear had the wicked blade of a glaive, pockmarked with runes and forks of lightning entwined in silver. Gunnir had a ring to it. A music. A whisper like the Grimsayer that somehow could be heard over the increasingly loud rumble above them.
Farden brought up his sword and tried to keep the point from wavering. ‘Give us Mithrid, and take the spear. You’ve won, Loki.’
‘Farden!’ Durnus hissed.
Loki cackled heartily. ‘My! You should have been bards and skalds, both of you! Do you think I haven’t studied the same elvish scripts? The same riddle? I was the one who brought it to you, remember? “Of blood, breath, mind, and soul”. It warns you from the outset that the spear demands a sacrifice,’ he lectured. ‘And if I am wrong, then you will have no trouble bringing it to me.’
Farden, Durnus, and Warbringer exchanged glances. It dawned upon Farden that the god might have won indeed. That this, after all his planning, his strife, had been part of Loki’s plan the entire time. It was all too easy for him, he snarled under his breath. All too simple for a god.
A chunk of black glass fell from a height untouched by the torchlight, and smashed at the foot of Warbringer.
‘We haven’t got all evening, it would seem!’ yelled Loki. His grin was mad with glee. Farden half-raised his sword to strike, but once again he held Mithrid tight and pressed the knife deeper. All the while, he circled closer to Gunnir. Farden matched him as if duelling. Durnus, too, weaved a path.
Loki roared at them. ‘Choose now, you mortal worms!’
‘Stay back, Durnus!’ Farden warned him. There was an avid glint in his eye that clutched Farden’s heart in ice.
‘Go ahead, Durnus!’ Loki urged him.
‘There’s no other way, mage! One of us has to choose. It was always going to be this way!’
Another crash of glass sounded behind them. A section of wall had peeled away. Shards skittered around Farden’s feet.
‘We’re running out of time.’
‘You shut your fucking mouth, Loki! And you, Durnus! Back away! Don’t you dare!’
Durnus’ hand reached towards the spear, the veins of his arm black in the pale light.
As Farden lunged to bat his hand away, Loki finally made his move. Mithrid had been waiting for him to do exactly that.
Seizing Loki’s wrist like Aspala had shown her, she reached behind her head and grabbed the god’s golden locks. Loki screeched like a wraith, but as he reached for the spear, he found the floor greeting him instead. Mithrid sank to her knees and drove his nose to the stone. Warbringer pounced to hold Loki down.
Farden’s hand found its mark, seizing Durnus’ wrist at the last moment. But as he pushed, he found it rigid as an iron railing. Farden’s gaze moved down his old friend’s arm. There, firmly in his grip, was Gunnir.
To Warbringer’s bellow, Farden grabbed Durnus by his collar, holding him to prove he was still alive. He stared into his reddened eyes, and clasped him by the back of the neck to feel the frail warmth to his skin. The vampyre looked no different. Durnus even showed his fangs in a smile.
Hope surged through Farden. ‘See, you were wrong, Durnus! Gunnir doesn’t need a sacrifice!’ he cried.
And yet, with the subtle yet inexorable shake of Durnus’ head, Farden’s hope met a crushing end.
‘I can already feel it, old friend,’ said the vampyre in a whisper.
‘No! You bastard! You selfish bastard!’ Farden yelled in his face. He pulled and pulled at the vampyre’s hand, but there was no dislodging it.
When Farden looked up, his eyes were half-closed and calm. ‘It is done,’ Durnus whispered. Farden watched, aghast and useless, as the pale skin of his face began to crumble away to nothing but fine sand.
‘This was my choice, Farden. I made it long ago, and I would see my own way to Hel instead of losing my mind to the daemonblood fighting to claim me. This death has been coming for a while, and if it can be of use…’ The vampyre shuddered. ‘Then so be it.’
Durnus’ left jaw had almost disappeared. Farden could feel the skin of his neck crumbling beneath his hands. Tears sprang to the mage’s eyes. Durnus reach out a hand already half gone.
‘You never failed me, Farden. Not once. For a man who never had the chance at a life of normality, one with wife and child, you were a son to me.’
‘I never meant it,’ the mage babbled. ‘What I said on the mountain. You saved us all by putting us on this path.’
‘Who knew,’ Durnus smiled again, one eye now disappeared. ‘After all this time. It was me who was the hero. Perhaps now they will write an edda about me at last.’
Farden caught the flash of movement behind him; heard Mithrid’s scream.
‘Farden!’
Before Farden could turn, before Durnus had fallen completely to dust, he felt the vampyre’s last thread of strength seize his hand and thrust it onto the cold of Gunnir. Durnus’ last whisper drifted into the dark.
Save them.
A mere blink later, Loki’s hand seized the spear. The god and the mage found themselves grimacing at each other for the briefest of moments before Loki began to cry out in pain. The rumbling built to fever pitch. Ice exploded from the spear, slicing Farden’s brow. The steel grew hot in his hand, almost unbearably so. Rocks exploded left and right of him. He could see Mithrid and Warbringer shouting to him but the roar was deafening. The cavern was collapsing. He stared down at the god, rising above him as Loki knelt, seething in his desperate attempt to keep hold of the spear. Farden realised what Durnus had done. Gunnir was Farden’s, and his alone. He squeezed the spear with all his remaining strength.
Its heat ran through his veins, surging up his spine and swelling in his skull. Not just Gunnir’s power, but a flame long missed and absent.
Farden went rigid. Magick sparked and crackled into life within his bones, seeping into him with jarring convulsions. White firelight raced across his back. And there: the flurrying prickle of ice. Of Scalussen cold and Scalussen steel. Of old blessings. Farden felt the pain beginning to recede as his armour rattled violently. Light escaped from the scales.
Farden held Loki’s wide and furious eyes, and grinned.
‘Beat you,’ he said.
The concussion knocked Farden to his knees, but it hurled the god spinning against the obsidian wall. The force brought half of the cavern tumbling down atop him.
Mithrid and Warbringer were staring at him with a mix of wonder and fear. He was levelling the point of the spear at the half-buried god when light pierced the gloom. Not Farden or Gunnir, but light of a waning day and growing fire. The ceiling beyond the tunnel of doors was collapsing. Ilios trilled frantically.
With the daylight, the hold of the tunnel’s spell broke. Farden felt the magick rush from him, clashing with Mithrid’s in two opposing waves. Together, they charged the god, but not before there was a burst of glass shards, and Loki, once more, vanished.
‘CURSE IT!’ Farden bellowed, and with his voice, an unexpected stream of searing light poured from the spear’s blade. The obsidian disintegrated before its power. A smoking hole was left in the rock.
‘I’m sorry, Farden,’ Mithrid began, tears scarring the dust and blood across her cheeks. ‘For Durnus—’
‘Durnus saved us all. Let’s do him the honour of making his sacrifice count,’ Farden snarled. ‘It’s time we left!’
With a resounding bell-toll, he slammed the spear’s haft on the stone and the air split before them.
Malvus was the agent of slaughter. The master of magick.
The sky had almost been emptied.
As the final daemons fell to the frozen earth, the armies of gold and green scattered, broken and defeated. Daemons’ claws dripped with gore as they stalked the fields of wounded. The rest were fleeing over the hill, chased and devoured one by one. Malvus’ arms collapsed in the grit. Heat emanated from him in great waves. Light ran across his tattoos in rapid succession.