Angst Box Set 1

by David Pedersen

  Dallow winced at the memory, and his heart raced. How long had he been unconscious? Minutes? Hours? He needed to get out of the library, find the others, and tell Angst. Everywhere he placed his foot was met with slippery covers and dusty piles. He couldn’t afford to fall again. It was so frustrating, he wanted to throw the book in his hand.

  “Dallow?” He heard Hector jogging toward him. “Eew. Look who you uncovered. She’s not pretty.”

  “Don’t,” Dallow said darkly, letting go of the table and gripping his stomach. He was dizzy from the blow to his head, and wanted nothing more than to vomit. “I’ll explain later, just get me out of here... We need to go.”

  “Are you sure?” Hector asked. “You look sick.”

  “Hit my head on the table rushing out to warn Angst,” Dallow said, his voice unsteady.

  “Warn Angst about what?” Hector asked.

  “It’s all been a lie,” Dallow said. “The curse was put there to trap the mermen and separate them from the mermaids. That giant monster Angst wants to kill so badly? That thing isn’t trying to kill the mermaids, it’s working with them. It’s waiting for the mermen to break free!”

  “What?” Hector asked, helping Dallow over the pile of books. “How?”

  “Jormbrinder,” he said. “The foci can’t be moved. It’s the source of the curse. That foci is the only thing keeping the shield up!”

  “It looks like it’s broken,” Angst said, eyeing the single dagger that pointed upward at the dome. “Half is missing, and what’s it pointing to?”

  The monument holding the dagger was familiar, but ill kept, as if its time at the bottom of the ocean had prematurely aged it. The dagger, if that was what you would call it, had a long handle and a triangular golden blade. A fixture that could’ve held a second dagger was empty. He reached for the hilt.

  “No, don’t!” Tarness and Tori cried out.

  Angst jerked his hand back in shock. He reached out again and they shouted once more. He kept doing it until they figured it out.

  “You’re a jerk,” Tarness said.

  “Well,” he replied in frustration. “What are you two so afraid of?”

  “Don’t you remember last time, Angst?” Tarness asked, pointing a finger like an angry parent. “You almost died holding two of those things at once. Messing around in Gressmore Towers with Chryslaenor in one hand and Dulgirgraut in the other? I had to knock you senseless so they could sort you out.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, walking away to set Dulgirgraut down several feet away. “I completely forgot.”

  “Old people,” Tori said to Faeoris with a sigh.

  “Look, if it makes you feel better,” Angst suggested, “stand on the other side of the monument. If you see any sign of trouble when I pick it up, you can knock me out again.”

  Tarness nodded and positioned himself.

  “How is this even a plan?” Victoria asked.

  “Shh,” Faeoris said, moving to stand behind Angst. “I want to see this.”

  “Where are you going?” Angst asked her.

  “Getting a better view,” she explained, her weapon sheathed and hands at her sides.

  Angst wiggled his butt, and she smacked it, making him jump. Dulgirgraut hummed warningly in his head, urging him not to proceed. He asked the blade why and merely saw an image of the city.

  “Thanks, Dulgirgraut,” he muttered under his breath. “Vague and useless, like always.”

  Without another word, Angst reached out to the long dagger, and Tarness punched him in the mouth. He flew back into Faeoris’s arms. It hadn’t been hard enough to knock Angst out, but he saw a few spots in front of his eyes. They cleared to reveal Faeoris sucking in her lips and trying not to laugh. The tip of his nose stung, and his eyes watered. Great, now he was crying in front of her.

  “Whad was dat for?” Angst cried out.

  “Sorry,” Tarness said. “I was nervous.”

  Faeoris turned him around and inspected his face. “It’s not broken.

  “Id hurts,” he said, sneezing several times until a clot of blood landed on the ground.

  “See, you’ll be fine, hero,” she teased, turning him back around.

  He sniffed deeply, wiping blood from his nose onto his tunic. He thought he heard Dulgirgraut laughing, but it was hard to tell through his ringing ears.

  “You step back,” Angst said, sniffling and waving Tarness away.

  His friend took several steps back, looking decidedly sheepish.

  “Shouldn’t we at least wait for Hector and Dallow?” Tori asked.

  Now that he was embarrassed and irritated, he didn’t see the need to wait. “No,” Angst said, placing a hand on the foci and lifting it.

  “JORMBRINDER: THE EXCEPTION” rang in his mind like a storm of bells. It was so noisy it almost hurt. There was resistance pulling the blade away from the monument. At first, it felt like tearing paper, but as it got further away it felt more like linen, and then leather, and finally wood. The litany of bells became louder, much louder than the shouts and warnings from his friends and Dulgirgraut. He felt his shoulders being shaken, but now he couldn’t stop. This poor foci had been trapped here for thousands of years, it wanted out, and it was time to set it free. Without realizing it, he’d struggled until his hand and the blade were pointed at the ground. He could hear his friends clearly now, and saw that Dallow and Hector were back.

  “Hey, just in time,” he said. “You okay, Dallow? You don’t look so good.”

  “You didn’t do it already, did you?” his blind friend asked, worry apparent on his face.

  “Do what?” Angst asked.

  “The foci, Jormbrinder,” he said hurriedly. “Don’t pick it up!”

  “I already did,” Angst said. “See, I’m fine. It’s not even a complete foci, just half. What could possibly go wrong now?”

  “I hate you,” Hector said, lowering his face to his hand.

  There was a loud crack from high above, the sound a frozen lake makes when you’re standing in the middle and it’s a little too warm outside. The noise became louder, and they all looked up to watch a spiderweb spread across the dome, starting at their point of entry. It reached out, more noisy cracks that screeched and ground together. Water began dripping down like the gentlest of spring rains.

  “Angst?” Tori yelled. “We need to get out!”

  “I think I know where Rose is,” he said loudly over the oncoming storm. “I can feel it now! She has the other half of the foci. We can follow her!”

  “Fine, let’s go,” Hector said.

  Angst hurried to Dulgirgraut and held out a hand. Remembering what had happened the last time he held two foci, he attempted to drop Jormbrinder before wielding his foci.

  “Quit messing around, Angst,” Hector snapped.

  “I can’t pick up Dulgirgraut,” he said. “Because I can’t let go of Jormbrinder. It’s stuck!”

  51

  “You couldn’t wait for five minutes!” Hector growled, shaking water out of his hair like a gray sheep dog.

  “I waited ten!” Angst blinked water from his eyes as the sprinkle became a shower.

  “He picked it up already?” Dallow cried out. “That’s what was holding the shield up!”

  “I sort of figured that out,” Angst said. “How do I fix this? At least until we get out!”

  “You don’t, but at least we know where to find Rose.” Dallow waved a hand to hurry them along, his other tightly gripping a book. “Angst, you’re going to have to bring both.”

  “But...” he said, his words as reluctant as his muscles, remembering the waves of pain the last time he’d held two foci simultaneously.

  “It’s not a full foci,” Dallow explained. “It’s only half. There are supposed to be two daggers. And this foci...it’s different.”

  “Everyone really can read my mind,” Angst said in surprise.

  “It’s not that hard.” Dallow smirked. His eyes were bright, squinting beneath the blue kerchief.
“Trust me, Angst. I learned so much in that library. Let’s use some of it.”

  Water was already rising above their ankles, as the city around them continued imploding. Angst looked up to see the hole in the dome, like a crack in a window from a stone he’d thrown. He hated to think who would admonish him for breaking a window that large. Daylight shone through freely, no longer filtered by the shield. The waterfall circling the dome shrank in diameter, creeping toward the rapidly widening hole in the dome’s center. Noisy ocean frothed at the edges, pouring through the crack like the closing mouth of a rabid dog.

  Aerella had once warned him not to wield another, giving him the impression that disaster of the worst kind would follow if he did. He’d thought she meant Dulgirgraut, but maybe she’d been talking about Jormbrinder all along. It was a mess, but certainly not a disaster, right? As he knelt beside Dulgirgraut, the blade glowed brightly and his hand shook over the hilt. His friends’ faces were filled with apprehension. He listened for voices of warning, songs or shouts. His eyes met Victoria’s.

  “Do it,” she said firmly.

  Angst gripped Dulgirgraut’s hilt. Jormbrinder’s single blade sparked with a noisy pop, and a marble-sized ball of light shot up ten feet into the air before drifting slowly to their feet. It whistled as it fell and hissed on landing before dying in the water. Angst stood upright, looking at the blade, and then his friends. He closed his eyes and sighed in relief.

  “Pretty,” Faeoris acknowledged, nodding.

  “Can we go now?” Hector said with a deep sigh.

  “I still can’t let go.” Angst tried shaking the dagger off his hand, but it was reluctant to leave. After returning Dulgirgraut to his back, he was able to move the blade from hand to hand, but he couldn’t set it down or throw it off.

  “You and Jormbrinder are like the ends of a magnet,” Dallow tried to explain, mouthing the words over the sheets of water cascading down around them. “Just put it somewhere out of the way. We’ll figure it out later.”

  Angst rolled it along his arm and down his ribs until it clung to his hip, which was exactly where he would’ve put any three-foot-long triangular golden dagger. The flood of ocean was already knee high when they heard it: crashing sounds in the water. Not the random splashes of old buildings tumbling, or even the now-constant flow of water pouring in. This had a cadence, like horses or elephants crossing a rushing creek.

  “Mermen!” Hector cried out, wielding two hooked swords.

  Thousands of the little monsters ran toward them down a wide street. They crawled over each other like bees in a hive. An angry, hungry mob, with mouths full of long, thin teeth open wide in silent screams. Angst was sure his heart stopped, and had to remind himself to breathe. A quick glance at his friends showed they mirrored his fear—even Faeoris swallowed hard and gripped her sword tightly. It wasn’t just the legion of creatures rushing toward them with their silent war cries. The mermen grew with every step. Like sponges dried out by their long entrapment, they soaked the ocean in with a thirst greater than the desert. Their muscles bulged, heads grew, torsos lengthened until most were larger than Tarness. Their charge quickened when they were at full height—seven feet of angry muscle, desperate for revenge and, by the look of their bared teeth, hungry for blood. Even before Hector could launch into the air, Faeoris spread her wings and flew forward. She picked up the nearest merman and spun him around at a nauseating speed before tossing him at others. Five fell into the water on impact and didn’t get back up.

  “I don’t understand,” Angst said, grabbing Dulgirgraut. “We saved them. It was an accident, but still, we freed them.”

  “Angst,” Dallow said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We need to leave.”

  “No,” Angst cried out. His heart felt as if someone had squeezed it, and his throat was dry. “They shouldn’t be attacking! Did she lie to me? I thought—”

  “Angst.” Tori pulled him to face her. “We need to get to the cave. Once you picked up that dagger, some blocks went away. I’m starting to see our futures more clearly. We won’t make it if we stay.”

  “Jormbrinder the Exception,” Dallow explained. “It works differently than the others. I read—”

  “Not now, Dallow,” she said. “Angst, it’s going to be dangerous, but it’s the only way. We have to go.”

  He nodded, but didn’t really listen. Everything was numb, his hands shook slightly, and he had that empty feeling you get from a loved one’s death or a breakup caused by betrayal. He barely noticed Tarness rush forward and call out for Hector and Faeoris to retreat. Tori hooked an arm around his and Faeoris grabbed his other arm. Together they pulled him down a street. He just stared at the water, his feet dragging along the ground. Moyra loved him, she’d said so, and he’d felt it. He’d been so sure their relationship was different. Faeoris and Tori dragged him around a corner. The water was now waist high and they slowed, each step a chore. Tarness and Hector killed any creature within arm’s reach. Everyone took turns shouting at him, Tori slapped him, but he just didn’t care.

  The darkness and pain in his mind overwhelmed him, until he heard it. The sound was like someone had picked up the ocean and dropped it. They all looked up to see the giant creature, still outside the dome but pressed against the remaining shield. Dozens of hairy feelers reached through as if trying to widen the crack, pull the beast in, or both. They stopped for a brief moment, stunned by its enormity, the unfathomable size of the oldest creature in Ehrde. Angst stood, wielding a glowing Dulgirgraut, and pointed it at the monster.

  “Angst,” Dallow said. “I know what it is. It cannot be killed.”

  “You mean it hasn’t been killed,” he said bitterly.

  “Even if you could, it would only end in our deaths,” Dallow pleaded. “We have to get out. We have to save Rose.”

  Pain washed over him, along with a thirst for revenge, a hunger to understand. He looked at Dallow and nodded, burying as much of it as he could. “For Rose.”

  “We’ll have to swim for it,” Tori said.

  Something gripped his ankle, and he drove Dulgirgraut straight down before anything could bite. A merman’s body floated up, surrounded by dark, cloudy water. Its body was pulled aside to make room for the next attacker.

  “Everyone down there,” he yelled. “I’ll hold them off.”

  “We both will,” Faeoris said with a wicked grin.

  Nobody argued. The water showering them had reached the bottom of their ribs and would be over their heads in minutes. Angst glanced up. Half the monster’s body was now inside the city. Maybe, if he held out long enough, he would have his chance. Other creatures were diving through the hole—distant, tiny bodies. Were the mermaids coming to attack too? His attention returned to the mob of mermen. He reached out to feel for their bones, to hold them in place. With Dulgirgraut, he should’ve been able to stop hundreds, but could only find the nearest dozen. His foci distantly informed him that Jormbrinder was muffling everything, but he’d already figured that out.

  “Go, now!” he shouted. It was like standing under a waterfall. When he lowered his head to take in deep gulps of air, salt water poured over his ears and around his mouth.

  Tori took the lead, followed closely by Hector, who swam with Dallow. Faeoris was in a berserker rage, her longsword shredding every merman with such ferocity Angst couldn’t help but shudder. He called for her, but she wouldn’t stop. His new friend screamed a battle cry he didn’t understand and cut a merman in half at his chest. He was in awe of her raw strength, and her fury. Her mouth was pulled back in a grimace that was hard to distinguish from a grin.

  Angst struggled to wield air, but couldn’t even form an entire bubble around her. Instead, he wrapped it around her waist and chest, like hugging her from behind, and with a lurch, jerked her back toward him. She landed beside him with a great splash, her face covered in blood, and her teeth bared in rage. He could tell that she fought every urge to kill him for pulling her out of the battle. Hers was a wild
sort of beauty, a fierceness that was exciting and dangerous, and the sight of her created a crack in his shroud of pain. She shook her head at his gawking, but couldn’t help but smirk.

  “Go,” he pleaded. “Please!”

  “Only with you,” she said firmly.

  With a nod, he sheathed Dulgirgraut on his back and took a deep breath to follow her. They both dove in, fighting the waves and a shifting current to gain momentum. There was just enough light from the opening above to see the cave entrance. She was a natural swimmer, her long legs kicking fast. Those legs in front of him and the monsters behind were all the encouragement Angst needed to try to keep up. Faeoris turned around to look back, checking on him constantly as they progressed. He was desperate to breathe; Moyra had spoiled him. The dim light ahead almost eased his racing heart and aching lungs. He nodded at Faeoris, urging her to swim on. As she kicked faster, webbed hands wrapped around his ankle. His body jerked back, and he cried out, losing the last of his precious air.

  52

  Unsel

  The wielders were forced to slow as they approached the castle, weaving through a mass evacuation. A chaotic jumble of frightened people converged on them, carrying everything from crying babies, to confused pets, to armfuls of valuables, all hurrying away from the castle as quickly as they could, like animals fleeing a forest fire. Rook hadn’t expected this, and it was arduous moving through the crowds. He wanted to hurry—that was the whole point of riding the swifen—but he didn’t want to injure the people they were supposed to protect. Rook ran a hand through his light, curly hair, trying hard not to pull it out. These people should’ve left weeks ago under the safety of an escort.

  Where was the plan? Sure, Alloria was hoping Angst and his friends would make it back before the sinkholes and gargoyles arrived, but that hope hung by a spider’s thread. What if they didn’t make it back in time, or battled with something even worse, or were dead? Alloria wasn’t a leader, she was a burden on the crown.