Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black)

by Brown, E. William

  Two more goblins met their end in quick succession, before they realized I had an invisible weapon. After that they switched to dodging, although the constant interference from the house’s enchanted defenders hampered their movements badly. Several arrows bounced off my shield, and I grabbed one goblin who stayed still for too long and tossed him into the fire.

  “Avilla! Over here!” Cerise called urgently from behind me. “Cavalry’s here!”

  The goblins bounced around the room like green monkeys, and one of them tried to dart around me to get at her. But I threw up a barrier to halt its progress in midair, and then Cerise flicked something that looked like a writhing blob of shadows at it. It went down screaming and clutching itself.

  Avilla stumbled, and an overstuffed chair leaped over her to intercept a blow from the troll’s massive club. The impact reduced the chair to kindling, but it gave her a moment to scramble across the room and get behind me. Then I was face to face with the troll.

  The thing was built like a tank, its hunched back brushing the ceiling two feet above my head. Judging from the hole in the side of the house behind it and the general devastation around me I had no doubt it could crack my shield in short order if I gave it the chance.

  I threw a force blade at it as it raised its club, but the invisible projectile just left a shallow gash across its chest. I dodged left as the club came down, and slashed awkwardly at its arm with another force blade.

  It roared, and brought the club around in a lightning-fast blow that sent me careening through an end table and into the wall. Wood and brick crumbled around me, and my mana level sank alarmingly.

  Ok, so it wasn’t clumsy. I threw a spray of pointed force bolts at it as I stumbled back to my feet, hoping to keep it at bay while I figured out how to kill it. But the thing just bared its teeth and charged at me.

  I jumped this time, flinging myself against the ceiling with a burst of force magic in the hope that it wouldn’t expect such a maneuver. Sure enough the club smashed into the wall instead of me, but then I found my face inches away from a mouth big enough to bite off my whole head in one gulp.

  I breathed fire into the troll’s face.

  That actually discouraged it. It stumbled back, dropping the club to claw at its face. I hit it with another ball of fire, and dropped to the floor just in time to avoid a blind swing of its clawed fists. That put me at eye level with something that might actually be vulnerable, so I stabbed a blade of force into its oversized privates.

  This time its roar was more in pain than rage. The hand over its face came down to clutch at the wound, and for a few seconds it actually stood still. Unfortunately three goblins chose that moment to jump me all at once, beating wildly at my shield with little swords and axes as they clung to me. I tripped and went down in a heap, and more goblins piled on.

  Something struck the magic of my shield, clawing at it and trying to pull it apart. It wasn’t terribly strong, but it was yet another distraction I didn’t have time for. I reached for fire again, surrounding both hands in balls of flame that I waved frantically at my attackers. Several of them caught fire, which sent them running around the room in a panic. But there were too many of them, and I could feel my shield wavering as the attacking magic ate away at it.

  Fuck this. Time to kick it up a notch.

  I let go of the shield, knowing it would take a few seconds to dissolve, and focused all my concentrating on forming a ball of whirling saw blades just outside of it. The elaborate force construct took far more effort than a simple blade, and was slower to form.

  But I was rewarded by a chorus of shrieks and screams, and a shower of blood raining through the gaps in my failing shield. In a matter of seconds the goblins who’d been trying to dogpile me were reduced to shredded meat. The wooden floor beneath me and the post behind me came apart as well, and the house groaned ominously.

  I levitated myself before I could fall through to the cellar, and looked around. Most of the room was ablaze now, and the troll was staggering towards the hole it had made coming in.

  “Oh, no you don’t.”

  I launched myself towards it, hoping my sphere of blades would deal with it as effectively as the goblins. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite that easy, as the troll’s flesh proved considerably tougher than wood. Instead the thing’s right shoulder and part of its back were badly shredded, but my spell collapsed as the unexpected resistance drained it of power faster than I could supply more.

  I lurched away, noting that it was damned cold outside the house. The night was lit by the glow of burning timber, and there were more goblins lurking about the yard and garden. Beyond that the plot was surrounded on all sides by dense forest, which could easily be hiding hundreds of the little buggers.

  An arrow grazed my side, and I threw up another shield with a curse. At least now I had some room to work with, but how was I going to take out that many goblins?

  Obviously I wasn’t. But maybe intimidation would work instead.

  I dropped back to the ground in front of the troll, and saw that just as I’d feared its wounds were already closing. It had left its club back inside, but when it saw me it growled angrily and ripped a beam out of the porch to replace the lost weapon. The house groaned again, and the beast rushed towards me.

  As it stepped off the porch I turned the ground between us into mud six feet deep.

  The troll’s first step sunk a foot into the sucking muck, and tripped it. It went down face-first with a tremendous splash, and immediately began thrashing about trying to get a handhold to climb out. I gave it a few seconds to get good and stuck, and then turned the mud into stone.

  A couple of arrows bounced off my shield, but I ignored them.

  The troll strained, but now it was pinned with both arms and two thirds of its body stuck in a solid mass of rock. I walked up to its head, and conjured a sledgehammer made entirely of stone that probably weighed forty pounds. I used a bit of force magic to augment my muscles as I lifted it over my head, and brought it down.

  The first blow cracked the troll’s skull, but it took two more to properly cave it in. I wasn’t sure if even that would be enough, so I pried it open and roasted the tiny brain inside with a sustained jet of flame.

  Then I turned to regard the goblins who’d been plinking arrows at me, and raised the gore-streaked hammer.

  “Who’s next?” I growled.

  They ran.

  “Fuck, yeah! Look at the little bastards go. I like your style, Champion.”

  I turned to find a pair of battered and bruised young witches regarding me from the doorway of the burning house. Cerise had a goblin arrow stuck in her shoulder, and Avilla was bleeding from several nasty gashes on her arms, but they were both on their feet. Cerise had acquired a second silver knife from somewhere, while Avilla held a bloody meat cleaver in one hand and clutched a massive tome against her substantial chest.

  Cerise was wide-eyed and flushed, giving me a half-crazed look I couldn’t quite read. Avilla, on the other hand, wore a fierce expression of defiance that somehow reminded me of a kitten. She was so adorable I just wanted to bundle her up and keep her safe forever, and never mind the bloody meat cleaver.

  “You’re not bad yourself,” I replied wearily. “My name’s Daniel, by the way. Daniel Black.”

  “Well met, Daniel of the Blacks. May we shed oceans of blood together.”

  O-kaaay.

  “Thank you for saving us, Mr. Black,” Avilla put in. “But I have to ask what Cerise offered for your help? Should I be prepared for a ravishing?”

  She seemed more amused than worried, so I chuckled.

  “I think the ravishing had better wait until we aren’t going to be interrupted by another monster attack,” I said dryly. “Besides, the house is on fire.”

  She turned to look up at it, and nodded gravely. “Poor thing. It was granny’s home, but it was always nice to me. I tried to stop the shamans from killing it, but between the four of them and the troll it
was just too much. I don’t suppose you can put out the fire?

  I glanced around at the snow-covered clearing, and then eyed the blazing roof. “I think the house is done for regardless, but a chance to salvage supplies would be good. Let me see what I can do.”

  Quenching fires was normally a simple task, easily within even my minimal command of fire magic. But this was too big to put out all at once, and house fires can be tricky. I took a deep breath, made sure my shield was stable, and stepped past them into a living room that was rapidly filling up with smoke.

  I put out the floor and burning furniture easily enough, but as I worked on the walls the floor began smoldering again. Was the basement on fire too?

  I cut away a circular section of floor with a force blade and stepped back, carefully holding the disk of wood in place until I was well away from the hole. Sure enough, tongues of flame leaped up around the edges when I moved it.

  So I had to drop into the basement, put that out, and then gradually work my way up. It took fifteen minutes before I got all the fires out, and by the time I stumbled back out the door I was hacking coughing from the smoke despite having heal myself twice. I collapsed next to the girls, and took a deep breath.

  “Are you alright?” Avilla asked mildly. Her arms were bandaged now, and she was carefully extracting the barbed arrow from Cerise’s shoulder. I couldn’t help but notice how adroitly she wielded the little knife she was using for the task. Cerise looked a little pale, but she was enduring the treatment as stoically as anyone could have.

  Avila paused to hand me a spare cloak, and I gratefully covered myself up. It wasn’t enough, but it ought to keep me from getting frostbite in uncomfortable places for the moment.

  “Yeah, I’m just running low on mana,” I reassured her. “Need to catch my breath a minute and let my lungs heal. But the fire’s out, so as soon as the smoke clears you two can go back in and collect whatever you need.

  She set the arrowhead aside and paused. “You have healing sorcery? Should I be letting you do this? I was just going to sterilize it and sew it shut.”

  “Hmm. Let me take a look at it.”

  I leaned over and put my hand over the wound, reaching out with new senses. Yes, I could shape the wound closed easily enough. That didn’t completely repair the damage, but with proper encouragement it would be good as new in a few hours. Interestingly I noted that there was already some sort of innate magic working to heal the girl’s wounds, or at least... hmmm... was it just making sure they wouldn’t scar? Interesting.

  “Your magic is warm,” Cerise murmured. “Kind of naughty, running all through me like that. Feel anything you like?”

  “Ahem. Yes, I think you’ll be fine now. Avilla, how about you?”

  “I’ll be alright,” she said a little nervously. “Anyway, don’t we have other things to worry about? What are we going to do?”

  Was she worried about me discovering some secret if I used healing on her? Well, whatever. She was right, so I could let her keep her secrets for the moment.

  “Well, I promised Hecate I’d protect Cerise here for a year and a day, and that covers starving and freezing to death as well as monster attacks. She also told me this is the beginning of Ragnarok, so I think we’d better assume the goblins will be back with friends.”

  They both grimaced. “I was afraid it was something like that,” Avilla commented. “It never snows this early in the year, and it’s been coming down for a week now.”

  I frowned. “Do you two have anywhere to go?

  “My mentor died of old age three years ago,” Cerise said. “She and Avilla’s granny were good friends, so I’ve been staying here ever since. I don’t really know anyone else. Witches aren’t exactly popular with the mundanes, you know.”

  “I’ve never even left the woods,” Avilla admitted. “Granny wouldn’t let me go past the yard unless I was running errands with her, and after... after she died, we’ve just been trying to avoid notice. I know there’s a village a few miles down the path, but I don’t know if it would be any safer than here.”

  Cerise snorted. “Hah. Tyler’s Grove doesn’t even have a palisade, let alone a real wall, and the sheriff and a few retired armsmen are the only people there who can fight worth a damn. Besides, I saw smoke from that direction yesterday. They probably got hit before we did.”

  I sighed. “Well, we need information at the very least, and big guys with swords are always handy to have around when something is trying to eat you. Is there a castle or walled settlement anywhere in the area?”

  “Lanrest has a wall,” she said after a moment’s thought. “That’s about thirty miles down the road from Tyler’s Grove, though. It could be a rough trip, especially if the weather keeps getting worse.”

  “Will we be any safer with people than monsters?” Avilla asked doubtfully. “Worshipping the old gods will get us burned alive if anyone finds out.”

  “Well, obviously we won’t tell anyone you two are witches,” I pointed out. “But I assume you have wizards or sorcerers or something like that here?”

  “A few sorcerers, and every kingdom has at least one guild for wizards,” Cerise nodded.

  “Ok. How about we say I’m a traveling wizard, and you two are my apprentices? Any leader with a brain is going to want all the magical help he can get in a situation like this. With any luck we can find a tough group to join up with or a castle that wants a healer on hand.”

  “I like that idea,” Cerise agreed. “No one is going to wonder why a wizard your age has a couple of sexy young girls with him, and then they’ll ignore us completely.”

  Avilla brightened. “Good point. Oh, and if people notice anything strange about us we’ll just imply that our ‘master’ uses us for experiments.”

  “Hey now, don’t go making me out to be an evil nutjob,” I put in. “Desperate people will overlook a lot, but if they think I’m a danger to their own daughters they’re liable to do something about it.”

  They two witches shared a look at that, and broke into giggles.

  “If they only knew,” Cerise chuckled, slipping her good arm around Avilla’s waist. “We’re the ones their daughters are in danger from.”

  “Better they don’t find out,” Avilla chided, leaning into her. “At least, not until after we’ve infected them with our wicked ways.”

  Ah, so that’s how it was. Well, they were certainly cute together.

  “Heh. Well, it sounds like we have a plan. So we need gear for hiking in snow and camping in the open, enough food to last a week or so, and whatever supplies you two need for your magic. Plus any portable valuables you can lay hands on, of course.

  The both nodded, and rose to their feet.

  “Right. Come on Cerise, our brave protector can keep watch while we pack.”

  Chapter 2

  The shakes hit me right after the girls went inside.

  I sat down gingerly on the front steps of the ruined house, and put my head between my knees. I’d been in fights before, but not like this. Growing up in the bad part of town will teach you to look out for yourself, but there’s a big different between a couple of bored gang members looking for someone to beat up and a pack of goblins trying to carve you up with swords. Not to mention the troll.

  I’d almost died. Damn it, what was I thinking when I said yes?

  I forced down a wave of nausea, and focused on breathing evenly.

  Yeah, I almost died. I gave in to a momentary impulse to go play hero, and now I was stuck with the job. Like it or not, this was my life now.

  The nausea passed, leaving me weak and tired.

  I sat up, and looked out into the darkness. A few flakes of snow were falling from the dark sky, and the cold was beginning to seep through my borrowed cloak. My feet were going numb. The shadows under the trees were impenetrable, and I wondered what was out there watching me. Goblins? Trolls? Worse? I didn’t even know what the possibilities were.

  Avilla and Cerise were working some kind
of magic, calling a stiff wind that blew through the house and carried the worst of the smoke away.

  Right. You’re a wizard now, Daniel. You got awesome magical powers to go with the deadly danger. Better make the most of them, or you won’t live long.

  A life spent hunched over a keyboard in a cubicle had left me badly out of shape for adventuring, and somehow I suspected reality wasn’t going to work like the computer RPGs I’d played. But I was good at being a power-gaming munchkin, so it was worth a shot.

  It took about ten minutes of sorting through the new instincts I’d gained to confirm that my first idea for improving the situation was possible, and another hour of fumbling about to actually make it work. It was easy enough to conjure up a little disk of obsidian and hang it on a length of twine to create a makeshift amulet, but after that it got tricky. I wanted a solution to the mana supply problem first, but it seemed that my spiffy new abilities didn’t come with an index.

  So instead of just knowing what options were at my disposal, I had to come up with an idea and then see if I could do it. Tapping ley lines wasn’t an option, assuming such things even exist. Sucking the residual mana out of the house would work, but that wouldn’t help once we left and I was hoping for a more permanent solution. Besides, given the state of the building I was afraid it would collapse if I depleted whatever structural reinforcement was still active.

  One of my favorite abusive spell research ideas in pen-and-paper RPGs was always tapping the kinetic energy of the Earth’s rotation to generate mana. No luck with that here. Which wasn’t surprising, actually - it was hard to make that work in a way that didn’t violate conservation of angular momentum. Hmm.

  Of course, the idea that finally worked was no less mind-boggling. Mana is a form of energy, if an exotic one. Matter and energy are different forms of the same thing. Transforming matter into mana required a very complex spell with high energy requirements, and it wasn’t especially fast. But by the time I thought of it I’d recovered enough to pull it off, using the mass of my little amulet as the source of matter.