This is the test. I’m really sure. I want to say no, and I should say yes. And I have no idea how to explain that I feel like an ass drinking her in when I’ve just...unlocked another artifact.
She laughs again. “You are very curious. No one ever struggles this much.”
“Look, to be completely honest…” It takes me a second to find the words. “I came here not caring about anything but revenge. I was going to slay a bunch of creatures, gather some magical objects and be on my way to carry out some slow, horrible vengeance. Nowhere in any of the legends or rumors about the temple did it mention actual people.”
Her eyes are the same shade as the glaciers, blue and luminous. I can practically feel them on me when she watches me quietly for a second. “You’re not like the others. You could be the one.”
Gods, I hope so.
“Doesn’t it bother you, though?” When my father sent me away to the university at Edda for my education, there were women. In the sprawling city where every son of a duke, prince, or king goes to be educated, the things he learns best are where to find the most generous pubs and where to find women who want to fuck. But it’s mutual and money keeps it honest.
These women...I just feel like they’re fish in a barrel.
“Our gifts are meant to be given, won, even taken. Cocidius seduced each of us with the thing our heart wanted most. An aspirant is our only hope of freedom. You receive powers and abilities no other mortal will ever possess and for the comparatively small price of bonding with you, we break the temple’s bonds.”
“Price?” This doesn't do a lot for a guy’s confidence.
Her smile is sly. “It’s never been pleasurable. Only four have succeeded in my realm. And the sort of man it takes to best Niflheim? They love like they fight – brutally.”
I feel a pang of sadness for her. There’s no room to make other people’s problems my problems. I have everything planned out. But the look on her face when she says this....Meridiana’s face when she explained how Cocidius wagers them...It’s hard not to feel a little invested.
“It doesn’t bother any of you that I...bond with each artifact?”
She passes me, waving me on behind her out into the main house. She opens a chest near the fire pit and her voice echoes out like a prophecy.
“Once, our kind were numerous. We were the inhabitants of the world, as much as mortals.” She sets out white fur bundles from the chest. “We’re called mythical now not because we were never real, but because there are so few left. Meridiana and I are two sides of the same coin. We are rare, and in another land we might be enemies, but we each have our place to balance the mythical world.”
She stands, the bright red bow of her mouth turned down. “Meridiana was a demon. I, Freya, am an alicorn. We each had another form. Cocidius transformed us for his folly in a way that can never be completely undone; our mortal aspects are permanent. But we can at least be free, and any rare creature wants that for another.” She hands me the furs. “There is no place for greed or jealousy in our struggle.”
Just like that, the stakes raise.
Freya pulls more furs from the chest. “Can I ask what set you on your quest?”
“The king of my country was betrayed, and in the process someone I love was hurt, the rest of my family slaughtered. I don’t care so much about the throne, but her…” I can only shrug. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”
Freya’s face lights on a smile, cheeks filling the regal angles between her cheekbones and delicate jaw. “That’s very heroic.” She’s so ethereal, so luminous. It’s totally different than Meridiana, but it has the same effect. Freya’s gentleness, her wild beauty coupled with full red lips. I can imagine her teeth sunk into them, blue eyes looking up at me, widening when she gasps. Those long arms and legs twined around me tight while I’m inside her.
Her smile widens. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s still a trial to complete.”
“What...how…?” Can she read my thoughts, too?
“Your energy is...somewhat overwhelming. It’s not hard to read you.” She winks and pushes the furs into my chest, herding me toward the bedchamber. “Change out of your leathers so we can begin.”
-Bergstopp-
The furs fit better than my leathers despite their thickness and their lining – something finer than silk – is like a second skin. I don’t feel the change when I step from the longhouse into the bright winter wastes.
Freya is waiting, almost blinding against the landscape. She’s donned a mantle that sweeps the ground, soft and white. It’s not fur, I realize when I reach her. It’s feathers, fine and downy. The staff in her hand is white wood. Its headpiece is a gold half-moon suspending a floating blue jewel that matches the ones on her diadem. The gold band disappears in her thick hair, and a horn spirals from its center. She’s as breathtaking as before, but somber now. All business.
She gestures to the land beyond the longhouse. It raises in four long steppes, tiers that conclude at the mountain’s peak. “The Afl-Raun. Trial of strength.”
This doesn’t sound so bad. I have strength. It’s the other craziness here that keeps getting to me. “Let me guess; each tier gets harder.”
“Correct. I can heal you in between, but not during combat. Until you’ve defeated your foes...you’re on your own.”
So far, so good.
“The test is to go on when you have nothing left. To fight with the last of your will, trusting me to replenish you. Pain, terror, weakness; you must overcome each one.” She waves her staff toward the first tier. A portal appears. “As with all north chambers, you may leave at any time.”
“But I leave with nothing?”
“That’s right. You forfeit your artifacts.”
And their freedom. She doesn’t say it, but I see it on her face.
“You’ll be tempted, Tamlir. By the midpoint, men give up fighting and drag themselves screaming toward the portal. All I can ask is that you trust me.”
That’s less reassuring information. “Got it.” I can do this. I’ve trained with the blade my entire life, and though I’m not a master, there aren’t many who can take me. I even have some insurance. I throw my pack against the front steps and reach inside. Healing potion. Healing potion.
Nothing.
Damn. “Any tricks you can share? Anything I should know?”
“The Blár Drengr have no eyes. Their souls must be able to see, however. The sockets are empty. No one has ever found that a vulnerability but…” She shrugs. “It could be a weakness, but that isn’t the point of this trial. Cocidius never meant for this to be easily defeated.”
“Then I hope he likes surprises.”
Her smile is a bare flicker. “Ready to begin?”
“Ready.” I draw my blades.
Freya swirls her staff and raises it, sending a bolt crackling into the sky. The energy from its wake sets my hair on end.
The world stills. No winds, no blowing snow. Even the sun’s flicker holds for a second.
Sounds echo overhead like a thousand birds on the wing. Clouds part on furious swirls and the sun dims like an eclipse.
The hand appears, the same one I saw on my climb. It hovers in a fist, its knuckles carved like the deepest trenches of the world. This close, it beggars my mind, that something this vast could exist, and some animal part of me wants to curl into a ball and scream.
Then, Freya’s hand is in mine. She squeezes, strong fingers gentle, fingers twined with my own. Her eyes are not on the insanity above us, are on me, and in them is an ocean of compassion, all the kindness of the world. It takes away my breath, more than the hand of a god above us. “I am with you. Trust in me.”
I nod, no longer afraid. Above us, thick bronze fingers uncurl. A trickle of obsidian stone pours from its palm onto the first tier, shaking the ground beneath our feet.
Frey tips her pointed chin. “Begin your trial, Tamlir Kynthelig.”
I approach the steppe, Freya following behind.
The stones jostle, each razor-edged piece vibrating. They levitate and, as my boot strikes the lip, a vortex begins inside the fragments. Wind screams inside the formation. It sharpens, becomes a tearing sound. I gasp for breath; there doesn’t seem to be air left in the world.
In a flash, it passes. Dust and snow settle.
What the chaos leaves in its wake couldn’t better fit the name Freya told me: Dark Warrior. Its effigy is that of a corpse, a man bloated and afflicted by corruption. And despite being stone, it fills the cold air with a stench of death that raises bile in my throat. A Drengr.
It’s no taller than I am. In a matter of seconds, it grows, swells to half-again my height, skin seamless, sin-black stone but somehow….elastic? Its conical helm, riveted breastplate, even the fur bands of its boots have a visceral quality that defies stone. Among them, it has the appearance of skin over carved bone.
The eyes, though... Freya was right. They’re just empty sockets, hollows that go on forever. Something watches from within, but it’s too deep or black to be seen.
Cold iron is useless. I sheath one blade and hold my other at the ready. Charge or block?
It closes the space in one long stride, answering the question. There is no preamble, no warm up while we gauge each other. The Drengr hunches and zips a line with its axe, a blade of metal so bright white I don’t know how I missed it.
I dodge, the wind of the blade rippling my hair, it barely missing me. I jump back, trying to put some distance between us. There’s no time for me to swing. The thing is so damn fast, and I’m already on the defensive. I’ve made the first mistake of combat, letting my enemy get the upper hand from the start.
He ducks for another swing at my legs. I leap at him, land one palm on his frozen stone helm, vault, and skid away behind him along ice and snow. I roll as I land, know that I need to find some room to maneuver. The cliff at the edge of the steppe is close, so close, and I can’t go much further.
I spring up, and the Drengr is still turning, ten feet away. Good. I stand, set my feet. Time to change things up. He comes on like a mad bull, but I’m confident. My form is good.
Until his blow hits my blade. It doesn’t break, but whatever tears in my shoulder makes me kind of wish it had. My fingers tingle and lose some strength.
I’ve deflected his blade high, so I take the only escape I can find, sliding between his legs. I scramble, lurching back up immediately, and leap away, but it’s faster this time, already on my heels.
Can’t outpace. Can’t block.
Its blade cuts my furs and sings across the flesh of my back, sharp as a surgeon’s knife. I hardly feel the pain, and that tells me the wound is deep, not shallow. Shallow wounds sting like hellfire. Oh Gods, I have to end this fast. I can’t last, and now I’m probably bleeding out.
I have to find an advantage. The steppes!
I leap for the first steppe and have a moment of blind panic as the ice and snow slides me toward the cliff. I catch the edge in time. Yes!
The Drengr comes on. He struggles with each lip, the only place he slows. Finally, there’s some distance between us. The steppes curve up and to the left in a half spiral until the mountain’s peak. The Drengr has just crossed the second steppe when I reach the top. Crouched at the cliff, I wait until he’s too committed to turn back, then dangle myself from the edge. The tiers aren’t massive but I’m higher above the first one than I thought.
This is going to hurt. I take a breath and let go.
The impact jars my teeth. My knees are on fire and the snap in my shin is audible. I can’t see through the tears. My instincts scream defense; curl up, huddle. I hadn’t planned on being under the Drengr when it followed me down, but now I have no choice.
Will takes over. Raise that sword. Raise it, hold it.
The Drengr is above me, seeming to stare down, the holes in his mask empty, devoid of emotion. He hunches, flings himself from the cliff, belly down, arms extended with axe at the ready.
This is going to be really, really bad.
I can heal you in between, but not during combat.
Gods, I hope so.
Thrust.
My elbows tear like joints of cooked meat. My blade plunges true and deep, but his weight crushes down on me. It muffles my screams, trapping me with my agony. The Drengr convulses. He explodes into a million particles of black glitter. It doesn’t matter. My insides are crushed, arms useless at my side. A ragged cough sprays my lips with blood.
Get up. My legs till the snow. Get up; don’t die on the ground. A Kynthelig doesn’t die on his knees.
Freya, please. The words die on my lips, I have no air in my lungs. Still, I will rise. I brace a hand on the ground, struggle up.
A gentle hand presses me back.
Light moves over my face and down my body, energizing but not soothing. Impossibly, I’m in more agony. Bones fuse, and threads of tissue burrow through my flesh. I can feel my body knitting back together. I want to sob in relief, but bones, my flesh, are locked, the healing seizing me like a vice.
Then the pain is gone. The light fades and I can see Freya’s beautiful face above me. She bites her lip, looking me over.
I sit up, holding my head. “Oh, gods.”
Freya glances up the steppe, nervous. I feel fear, low in my gut. If something up there is worse than this was…
She turns to me, smiles. “Ready for the next tier?”
I struggle up, panting. Nothing hurts. I feel great, physically, but my mind is a little broken. The agony is fresh in my memory, the realization that I was about to die, and I can’t line that up with how I feel fine a breath later. “I need a minute. All the gods...I need a minute.”
Her eyes dart out over the valley. “You don’t have long.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
She swallows heavily and turns her face down. “The portal is here. Remember that.” The words come slow with regret.
No. I won’t abandon her. I get to my feet and grab my sword. “I’m not done yet. Just promise you’ll be there the second it’s over.”
Freya squeezes my fingers. “You have my word.”
Wind has already begun to howl when I mount the second steppe. A single hand appears again, darkening the Earth, staggering my mind. Its fingers open, creating eddies and throwing a storm of ice shards at us, forcing us to shield our eyes. As my vision clears, the hand looses its fragments. They spin on the gale and coalesce into something like a pair of bat wings. Above them floats a mask, the same hollowed-eyed face as the Drengr. Its body glitters, and squinting, I can just make out that it’s made of thousands of shards of onyx.
A vörðr. I listened to my tutor now and then. It’s paying off.
I take a last glimpse of Freya, standing solemn below, strikingly beautiful against the bleak landscape, before I turn and start forward.
I swap steel blade for iron.
The wraith hovers. It doesn’t charge or fly. Its fragments gleam black in the sunlight. It ripples, a wave that seems to bend the light of the world, and on an otherworldly gasp, it becomes two vörðr.
How many times can it do that?
Now, they move. Twin shrieks emit from them, though I can’t see that they have mouths. They pierce me, hitting me with almost physical violence, and I wince, pushing my way forward.
They move, now, rising in the air. Their wings sound like stone grinding over millennia, and they bob as they move, making it hard to tell if they’re about to drop on me.
I circle, blocking with my blade.
The world pulses, inhales again, and then there are three of them.
I swallow, breathless, as they shoot up, black dots on a blue sky, and swoop down.
This first wraith drops on me, a crossbow bolt loosed from the sky, and I barely dive out of its way as its stone wings spread, keeping it from ramming into the ground. It uses its momentum to arc and follow me, and I spin, not yet recovered, my sword swinging wildly toward it. It dodges, impossibly fast, seeming to
curve around my blade.
Pain. Blinding agony as its claws shred my shoulder, and when it ascends, a crimson thread of blood connects us for a frozen moment.
I clamp a hand to my shoulder, teeth grit, casting about for something, anything, mind racing for an idea. I can’t stay out in the open. Their advantage is their maneuverability, and I have to find cover.
There. At the edge of the arena, against the steppe face, an overhang. It’s not deep, but it’s enough. I race toward it, chased by irate shrieks behind me. From the corner of my eye I see one zip past me before reversing into a dive.
The overhang is too far, at least ten feet away. No time, no time. It’s coming fast, too fast, and I have to veer from my path, away from safety, to avoid it at the last moment.
This time, it takes a piece of my leg with it.
The wound isn’t deep, but I still limp, trying again for the overhang. But now all three are hanging low above it, slipping back and forth through the sky like ink across parchment, and I know they’re toying with me. If they came all at once, I’d be dead, and they know exactly why I need the overhang.
But they’ve made a mistake. By not killing me quickly, they’ve shown me how to beat them. I hadn’t noticed this when the first wraith dove, but the second time, the wraith had fallen like a stone, only gaining mobility just before it hit the ground.
When they dove, they were committed.
Apparently, they’ve had enough of me circling, them guarding the overhang. One splits off, arching high above me, readying itself.
Time to test my theory. I run toward the other two, sword low behind me, powering through the pain in my leg, like I’m desperate, trying again for safety. The two ahead of me draw back, wings extended, a barrier that will shred me when I reach them.
But safety isn’t my goal, anymore.
Predictably, the one above me dives.
This time, I’m ready.
I leap forward and roll, chopping with everything I have at the space the wraith will occupy in moments. I pray to every god I can name, and the world seems frozen in honey as I come around, my sword whipping on the momentum of my roll.
Temple of Cocidius Page 5