by Kody Boye
“It really is beautiful,” Odin said. “At least, I think it is.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
When finally the conversation ground to a halt and silence ruled the world, Odin closed his eyes, tilted his head back and bared his neck to the cold winter air.
He could only hope that they had no encounters with werewolves or anything of the sort.
A chill blizzard that came in from the north disrupted their travels and forced them to stop early in the evening. Pushed to the side of the road, along the Liar’s Forest and possibly into a location where they could be picked off by werewolves or bandits, they first secured their horses to the trees and then arranged the tent before climbing in without so much as starting a fire.
Once inside, buried within their bedrolls and shivering despite the constant warmth Odin tried to supply, they listened to the sound of the howling wind and tried to remain calm despite the fact that the world seemed ready to tear them apart.
It’s just the snow, Odin thought, shifting beneath the covers and trying to make himself comfortable. Calm down. Nothing’s going to happen to you.
Of course, if one were to truly try and summon the deviant urge of miscreant, they could say that several things could go wrong. Their horses, tethered to the trees, could free themselves and go running off; the tent, patchwork-made and assembled crudely, could tear open; Odin’s magic, constantly supplied but not evenly dispersed, could fail and thrust the two of them into agony. He doubted not his abilitiest, and while tempted to try and start a magicked fire within the tent, he did not want to risk lighting it on fire and trapping the two of them within a raging inferno.
Across from him, eyes closed and lips pursed, Virgin appeared to sleep without so much as a shiver, chest slowly rising and falling in even, hushed tones.
How does he do it?
Whatever the reason, if his companion truly was asleep—and, Odin couldn’t doubt, he was—then that meant that he would have to take the first watch of the night.
After pushing himself forward and righting himself in place, he ran his hands along his face, then reached out and touched the side of the tent, testing just how cold the world outside was.
Hmm.
The thought occurred to him shortly after he realized that the fabric, whose mesh seemed made by several interlinking layers of thread instead of least one, felt much more durable than he had initially anticipated. In response, he lit his hand with magical fire, but shortly after he did so, Virgin shifted on his side and opened his eyes to watch him.
“Hey,” Odin said.
“Hey,” Virgin replied.
The two stared at each other for several long, undeterminable moments, possibly waiting for one or the other to speak, before Virgin propped his body up with one elbow and watched Odin with calm eyes.
Unnerved, Odin willed the magic to disappear.
The tent succumbed to darkness.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t try something,” Virgin said, his voice a candle lighting one’s way through the dark, “but it might be better if you didn’t.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. I just realized the tent is made of more than just a few layers of thread.”
“Oh?”
“Usually that meant you can heat the layers simultaneously. It’s like a blanket—the bottom layer gets warm, the middle follows, then the top sometimes heats itself as well.”
“Do you believe that will make it warmer in here?”
“Possibly.”
“Don’t worry yourself over this, Odin. I’m fine.” The Halfling paused. “Would you like me to sit up first?”
“No. I’ll do it.”
Virgin settled down and adjusted himself in his bedroll.
Odin closed his eyes, though it did little to distinguish the darkness inside his head.
By the time Virgin woke him to offer a shift change, Odin felt the night, as well as the blizzard, would never cease to end.
It’s all right, he thought, settling down onto the bedroll with his hands behind his head and his arms to either side. It’ll eventually die down.
How they could manage to remain in the tent for such a long period of time was beyond him. He imagined that, if the snow were to get severe enough, they would be buried beneath it. Even if that did happen, they could always break themselves out, either with magic or swords, but the idea still didn’t sit well with him.
As his conscience began to fade, ever so slowly allowing him to drift into the realm of dreams and where things at times seemed much more simple and others far too complex, he thought but for a moment of Virgin and how he would be sitting up all alone.
Shortly thereafter, his mind clicked off and he was asleep.
What seemed like but a few moments later, something brushed up alongside the tent and stirred him from sleep.
“Huh?” Odin asked.
“I didn’t say anything,” Virgin replied.
“You touched me.”
“No I didn’t.”
Odin bolted into an upright position.
“What?” the Halfling asked.
His hand burst into white fire so quickly he could hardly believe his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Virgin frowned, his eyes straying to the tent—where, obviously, the fabric could be seen bulging inward. “Oh shit.”
His eyes still hardly able to focus due to the fact that he’d been in such a deep sleep, Odin found it hard to believe that something outside had forced the tent to warp inward, so much that when he reached out and pressed his hand against the object he could immediately recoiled. He eventually bumped into Virgin, who merely shrugged him off before the tent expanded back into place.
“What… the fuck,” Odin said.
Outside, one of the horses grunted, then let out a scream.
Virgin was out of his bedroll before Odin could even begin to reach for his swords. Dagger drawn, light reflecting off its metal and back into his eyes, Virgin threw himself forward and out into the open air.
“Wait!” Odin cried, grabbing his swords.
Once out of the tent and nearly face-down in the snow, he pushed himself to his feet, turned, then cast three orbs of light into the surrounding area.
A creature he had not seen in some five years stood directly before one of the horses, opposing form tall and claws extended around the horse’s neck. Its eyes gleaming in the light reflecting from the orbs of magic, its snout wet and covered in blood, it turned its attention on Odin and offered a snarl that chilled his bones despite the snow that fell around him. Monstrous wouldn’t have even begun to describe the creature, as it stood some seven or eight feet tall and had a set of teeth that could have easily severed the horse’s, and while covered in blood that ebbed from the slight cuts upon the horse’s neck, it held a barbaric stature Odin couldn’t help but compare to something humanlike.
To the side, the horse’s companion thrust its head back and forth, desperate to free itself from the rope that held it in place as yet another of the creatures appeared from the woods behind them.
“Get back!” Virgin screamed. “Get back!”
The Halfling lashed out at the first creature who had its hands around his horse’s neck and slashed the air in front of it, managing to disengage the creature before it could do any further harm to the equine. Virgin then thrust his dagger into the creature’s jawline, then brought it back down on one of the claws that came soaring toward him before it could strike him alongside the head.
The creature screamed.
Odin drew both of his swords.
He cut his horse’s bonds away and watched it flee into the night.
Come back! he thought, willing his thoughts into the creature’s head in a fruitless attempt to try and bring it back.
When he found his magic would do nothing to summon his beast of burden, he flipped both his swords in his hands and prepared for the next creature to come at him.
On all fours, the brunt of its
weight distributed into five equally-long fingers, the creature raised its head and snarled, bearing sharp teeth.
“Odin,” Virgin said. “A little help here.”
Odin thrust his hand forward, gathered the snow falling through the air, then fired it into the face of the creature hovering over Virgin.
The werewolf, stunned, stumbled back into one of the trees, disrupting a branch above it.
“Get away from here,” Odin said, jabbing his father’s silver-bladed sword in its direction. “I said get away!”
The creature screamed.
He screamed back.
When the creature lunged forward, he ducked and slashed his sword above him.
At first he couldn’t imagine what he had done, as he smelled the scent of burning flesh akin to a fireball he could have thrust onto the creature. However, as he turned, and as the creature who had attempted to attack him collapsed into the snow bloodied and bleeding, Odin looked down at his sword and saw steam rising from its surface.
No.
It couldn’t be. Those were just legends.
When the creature lifted itself from the ground, Odin saw, quite visibly, the telltale signs of singed flesh and hair falling from the creature’s torso.
“It is true,” Virgin whispered. “They’re vulnerable to silver.”
The werewolf turned and tore into the night.
Behind them, the other werewolf whom Virgin had slashed with his dagger disappeared into the darkness.
Virgin’s horse lunged back on its hind legs and kicked the air before them.
Odin lunged, tackling his companion to the ground.
Just above them, the horse’s hooves lashed the air and kicked blood up onto the snow.
“Thanks,” the older Halfling grunted, managing to smile.
“My horse is gone,” Odin said. “The man who gave them to us—“
“There isn’t anything we can do,” Virgin sighed. “Come on. We need to get out of here. Now.”
Little trouble managed to encounter them come their escapade through the night’s blizzard. Eyes alight with unease, hand pressed forward and trailing several magicked orbs of light across their path, Odin searched in vain for the horse he’d specifically bought for this trip, but to no avail. He also found, quite contentedly and securely, no trace of blood, though he could easily tell that the stupid creature had backtracked more than a few times in its rash attempt to escape the campsite.
“We’ll probably never find him,” Virgin said, securing an arm around Odin’s abdomen to hold him in place. “Stop trying.”
“I’m keeping the lights up,” Odin replied. “Just to ward them away.”
“You think your magic will keep them from coming back?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The lights were out when I slashed the one with my sword.”
“Clever thinking on your part.”
“I didn’t know the rumors were true.”
“There aren’t many silver-coated swords to go around these days, are there?”
Apparently not, Odin thought, but thought it best to say nothing.
While they continued onward into the night, Odin found himself longing for Ornala and the safety of his shared quarter with the king. At least there, within the royal chambers, there was no fear of werewolves, of bandits, of weather so horrible and desperate it imposed upon any who traveled in it a sense of death. He briefly considered the idea that within a few days, he could be within that place, on the bed that had so rightfully become his and with dogs he considered as much his own as they were with kings, but in those sentiments, he began to wonder—and, ultimately, fear—just what the king would feel about Virgin.
Will you despise me, he thought. Or will you even care?
He knew nothing of Ournul’s affiliations with men queer, knew not what he thought or considered them to be or even if he knew men of that persuasion. If he tried to consider it, Odin imagined his king kind, for it was said throughout all the land that Ournul would take the time and care to be the best person possible, but that did not mean he was without his vices. There was a reason the need for knights had arisen within the past hundred years, and for that it seemed he could hold a plaintive judgment to those things he considered unnecessary, but did that mean he would turn his own champion away?
If anything, he’ll just want us to remain apart.
As he and Virgin had discussed before, there was a high likelihood that the king would want their relationship to stay silent—discreet, nondescript, and kept out of the overall picture. Their time together would have to be spent behind closed doors or, at the very least, within the company of others, as to not draw attention to the fact that they were merely more than just friends.
With a short sigh, Odin trailed the orbs of light forward and strung them together like beads, willing them to travel the side of the road like some exotic caterpillar making its way across a leaf in spring.
“How long do you think it’ll be until we hit Dwaydor?” Virgin asked.
“Tomorrow,” Odin said. “Maybe in the afternoon.”
They had no problems with werewolves, bandits, or even the weather come the following morning and throughout the day. Into the afternoon, which waned across time as the sun fell over the horizon, the telltale signs of Dwaydor began to loom in the distance, beckoning upon them a stature of conquest that meant they were more than halfway toward their goal. Sheer, absolute, and resembling something of a sphere even from so far away, it extended into the sky and seemed to dazzle them with images of lust and sleep in a place where the conditions would be much greater than they had existed in for the last few weeks.
“Well,” Odin said, extending a finger. “That’s it.”
“The stadium city,” Virgin nodded, tightening his hold on the reins just below Odin’s abdomen. “It’s quite a marvel, isn’t it?”
While Odin had never considered it something of the sort, he could easily pour over its intensity and what history had melded it into what it was today. Even Virgin, who’d never been so far north, could appreciate everything it entailed, and did so by raising a hand and trailing his finger along the highest parts of the city—where, possibly, men stood watching the horizon, maybe even conversing about the two men who shared one horse making their way toward them.
We’ll sure be a sight.
At the thought, his eyes began to water.
After such a long time—after so many days, weeks, months and almost a year—he would finally be returning to the place where they’d scattered his father’s ashes.
If only I had the strength to do so.
Odin bowed his head.
Behind him, Virgin tightened his hold around his abdomen.
Whether or not his companion could sense his unrest he couldn’t be sure, but in that moment, he didn’t care. The fact that Virgin did so was enough to ease his mind and settle his heart.
“Hail, travelers!” one of the guards called, raising his hand and gesturing his companions to raise their bows. “Who might you be?”
“I am Odin Karussa, the king’s champion!” Odin called back, drawing his sword to flash the black blade before his audience’s eyes. “I have returned from my mission and seek entry into Dwaydor.”
“Your entry will be granted, but be warned—you will be watched.”
“Of course,” Virgin chuckled, sliding his hand away from Odin’s stomach and onto the reins when Odin slid his sword back into his sheath. “There is no freedom within the land of men.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Odin asked.
When Virgin didn’t respond, Odin decided it was for the better to keep his mouth shut and instead allowed his companion to lead their horse into the city as the gate was raised and the town was revealed to them in full. Though hardly any people were out and about at this hour of the morning, much less with the current weather conditions, there were some making their way through the streets, brushing snow from the path to keep those frail and uneasy from slipping an
d hurting themselves.
“It’s so,” Odin began, then stopped before he could finish.
He would have said ‘different,’ had he the slightest misconception. However, it appeared as though it had not changed since the last time he’d been here—more peaceful, yes, and more wholesome, but not in any way different.
“Not what you expected?” Virgin asked.
“Not particularly,” Odin replied.
“I guess you should take the reins now.”
“All right,” Odin said, reaching down to take the leather straps from Virgin’s hands.
“Odin?” a voice asked.
Odin looked up.
Directly in front of them, no more than a few feet away, stood a young man Odin had never imagined seeing again for a very, very long time.
“Parfour?” Odin asked.
The young man smiled and raised a hand.
Without so much as a second word in passing, Odin threw himself from the horse and into the boy’s arms.
*
“Life… with… a baby,” Carmen said, trying desperately to keep from repeating the dog’s actions and curling under the newly-acquired sofa.
Her joy over the matter had quickly faded when the child had proven to be a noisy one. How such a small creature could make such a high-pitched sound she wasn’t sure. It seemed at times the windows would shatter, and while she longed to escape it, the weather would allow no such thing, especially since the snow had continued to worsen.
Beneath her feet, Honor whimpered and hid his eyes behind his paws.
“Yeah,” she chuckled. “I know what you mean.”
“Babies are noisy,” Ketrak said as he walked into the room. “They’re all like that.”
“I don’t know how long I can take this,” Nova said, tugging his hair as he walked out of the back room. “It never stops.”
“You did this to yourself,” Carmen informed him. “Can’t complain.”
“Nope,” Ketrak smiled. “Can’t.”
“Neither of you are on my side?”
The dog whimpered.
“Even the dog isn’t,” the red-haired man groaned.