I rubbed my eyes and looked downhill.
Hundreds of svartalf troops were rushing up to fight the draugr, who had butchered a hundred a stone’s throw away from us. The dead were picking their way over the fallen ones. The svartalfs, their silver and black hair, their bone-white and black faces, looked martial as they rushed to battle. They were screaming warnings, as spells roared to life from the dark host of draugr that was swarming down for them. I saw the undead elven officer bark cool orders, and the two thousand draugr scattered across the hillside below us, and with no ceremony, they tore into hundreds of charging svartalf troops.
A dull clanging of metal on metal echoed in the cavern. Then the sound was like the hammering of thousand smiths, and then the screams joined in. The troop of Scardark were surrounded in a heartbeat and ferociously fighting for their survival. Spells, dark and blue fire flashed amidst the draugr, scattering and slaying dozens, but the dead rushed anyone they saw throwing such magic and while many draugr fell into fiery ruin, it was hopeless for the living. Like roaches, the draugr swarmed them. Arrows and bitter spells of fire slew the officers and maa’dark of the small svartalf army.
Kiera hissed. “Wait a second. We have to see if we can get to the Way of Echoes.”
“Where is it?” I panted breathlessly.
“Beyond the fog over there,” she said and pulled us behind a nearby boulder. I squinted to the other end of the cavern, but saw only darkness billowing calmly there.
We waited, taking cover behind some rocks.
Bravely the the hundreds of the enemy tightened their ranks and chanted, swords, spears, and spells slaying. Then they attacked, against all logic.
I have never seen such bizarre swordplay, such skill with spears.
The swift, deadly soldiers of what I assumed were from Scardark slipped between the dead, and their bright weapons flashed and weaved, dipped and thrust as the few carved into the draugr army. Spears punched at the svartalfs, many fell, wounded or dead, but the fury of the defending force was far from spent. A mad, deadly melee continued as the draugr surrounded the thinning force, and there they fought, in the dark, illuminated by odd, unnatural lights, the draugr officer shouting guttural, dry and hissing orders.
“We have to decide,” I told Kiera.
She cocked her head, as if listening to something we could not hear. Her mouth went into a tight line. “We take the tunnels.”
“Why?” I asked, not sure I was missing something. I looked at the far wall, and there the dark fog was dissipating. I saw a wide, paved way lead to what I thought was a doorway with white pillars.
“Let’s go,” Ittisana said, pushing at Cosia. “That way!” She pointed to our right, where loomed high stone crags and the cavern’s wall was very near, beyond fog.
“Wait!” Thak said. “Ulrich is right. The draugr are winning. We can make good time by the Way of—”
Echoes answered. Kiera had heard them already.
Horns were blowing far off in the corridors, beyond the fighting army. There, in the pillared gateway lights shone. The brazen martial sounds tore at the air, hundreds of commanding shouts could be heard, and it all sounded ominous. “Let me guess,” I said. “An army?”
“A huge army,” Kiera said.
Many more svartalfs would be there in a bit. “Let’s go then,” I said.
The screech of metal, blade on blade, grew in intensity as we rushed from the portal. I had to look back at the gate, because I was terrified. There was the relative safety of Aldheim, though of course there was no real safety. There was nothing to go back to, but to abandon the gate felt like letting go of a life raft in shark infested waters. The charge for the side tunnels made my chest constrict with fear, and I noticed the wound was also throbbing angrily under my chain. Kiera went first and I pushed away all my concerns and followed as best I could. I cast a glance at the draugr, who just then speared a dozen elves in the middle of their formation, and pushed inside the ranks, the dead wielding maces and axes, fiery whips, killing dozens.
Then I saw the new enemy arrive. At the gate an army heaved into sight. It was a dark army of svartalfs, their main guard and fighting force under snake flags. There were thousands. Many rode lithe lizards, their officers gorgeously armored in silver and red; contingents of archers ran with them. On their flanks, hundreds of thick, stout creatures rushed in heavy armor and I thought they had beastly faces, as they roared and charged before the more structured elven army behind them. Orcs.
The dead hacked down the last of the enemy. More svartalfs with swords and shields fought valiantly, being goaded and torturously stabbed and wounded by the dead from all directions until they fell. The grinning draugr saw the new enemy army, the officers screamed guttural commands, the white Hel’s standard dipped. They formed ranks, ready for their purpose. They were to give us time. The draugr commander looked at us, resentful.
“Hurry up!” Thak rumbled near me as we charged down the hillside, stumbling on boulders. I jumped over a stone, fell and rolled, my sabre’s hilt scraping a rock. I got to my fours, traced my hand across the rocks which were veined with golden seams. Cosia, her hands tied, was rushing by, and Ittisana kicked me as she passed. I grinned, terrified, and got up, stumbling after them. Kiera danced ahead, got on the flat ground beneath the hill of the portal, and plunged into the darkness that was drifting across the way, her dead strength propelling her forward with uncanny speed. Her sword Heartbreaker was out, and it saved her, as svartalfs appeared out of the dark.
Sparks flew as a trio of them emerged from behind the ruins of a wall. They were males, their faces bone-white and as beautiful as their elven cousins in Aldheim, eyes as bright with the colors of silver and gold. They were surprised, as Kiera rolled in the midst of them with blinding speed, and nearly decapitated one, who parried like a wraith. He roared a challenge, and his two longswords tried to slash at Kiera, but the dead girl laughed mockingly as she became smoke and the blades went through her.
She reappeared face to face with the male elf, and ripped her sword through his throat. Ittisana, in the meantime parried the mace of one of the svartalfs, who was a muscular and big one. Her snakes weaved as she thrust her sword at the enemy, who took the hit stoically, his chain mail absorbing most of the strike, and punched his other weapon, a thin dagger, casually at her midsection. She was skilled with blade and shield. I had seen her fight, but now she was clumsy, and slow. The shield was not in place.
The dagger would have killed her.
But for Thak.
The jotun was there, his two-handed sword took the dagger and the giant, man-sized, pushed the svartalf aside. The enemy bounced back and barreled into Thak in rage, his mace connecting with the dark-skinned giant’s chest. The look on the svartalf’s face was so astonished, I nearly smiled. His wrist was broken, and Thak, his jotun strength not diminished at all by his smaller size, grabbed the arm, and ripped it off.
The last svartalf ran.
Kiera didn’t see him, didn’t take after him, and I saw Cosia was mouthing words of encouragement for the soldier, probably hoping to be rescued, but she would not be. Why was she with us, anyway, I cursed, and rushed after the svartalf. I was reaching for spells, the ones I knew, but the svartalf was skillful, expected to be attacked, and dodged by pillars or orange stone.
I called out for the fiery wall. I put it together in my mind, wondering if Cosia would smile appreciatively, since she had taught it to us, and I released the fire. A thin, crackling line spilt the air, rushed on, quickly catching up with the dodging svartalf, burning through an odd, horse-sized mushroom, and igniting dark moss on a rock the svartalf had just vaulted over. There, right there where he landed, just outside the billowing darkness, I managed to catch him with the spell.
The fire coiled around his head, igniting his hair into a wild, crackling crown of fire, and he screamed as his flesh burned. His last steps took him face down on a rock, and his skull spewed flaming brain matter. My belly churned with disgust
as I let go of the spell.
Kiera pulled at me. “Well done, but we have to hurry. The lower ways are over there.”
I rushed after her and saw Ittisana was pointing her sword beyond the dark, billowing shadows of Coodarg, which were dissipating rapidly now. There was some sort of a doorway, beyond some more ruins. I nodded and we rushed that way. Looking back, no more svartalfs were near us, and when we reached the doorway, Ittisana’s spell gave me the ability to see a dark, winding stairway leading up beyond the hole. Cold wind blew in my face. The gorgons disappeared inside, Kiera went after them, blending like she was born into the shadows. Cosia was mouthing curses.
I plunged in, but hesitated. Thak was standing beyond the doorway as Ittisana pulled Cosia to the stairway. Kiera was listening for sounds up there. “I wish Cosia had died,” I murmured, hating her. “We should smash her head in and leave her rotting in a dark hole.”
Thak pushed me. “Keep the gorgon Cosia alive.”
“Why?” I muttered. “I didn’t want her here to begin with. Shannon would not explain. Kiera won’t either.”
He shook his head. “She has a role to play, dear friend. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. She might prove very useful yet.”
I hesitated and looked back to the battle.
It was a rare sight.
The two thousand draugr were arrayed across the hill amidst the dead svartalfs, as at least four thousand enemies marched against them. The svartalfs didn’t hesitate, they chanted, and a horn rang, their spears rattled into positions, as each successive rank aimed them at the draugr. They looked efficient as hell. The draugr general rode his dead lizard around, and then screamed an order.
A thousand prepared spells cut from the draugr at the svartalfs.
Many spells spattered against shields, saving the lives of the svartalf troops, though their banners and bits of clothing burned to a crisp. The defensive spells of the svartalfs absorbed much in some places, where a maa’dark was standing with the spears.
Hundreds of spells killed the enemy.
Masses of svartalfs were hurled back, left and right, as walls of fire and bitter ice grew under the living. The spells were killing them as they advanced. In one place, an insidious, deadly cloud turned a regiment of elves into skeletal husks.
The enemy didn’t seem to notice.
They thickened their ranks, marched on, rushed to fill the holes.
Three svartalf maa’dark answered in kind.
Fiery elementals rose from the middle of the draugr army, ripping and smashing the dead as they rose to their full height. One of the spells, a huge fireball dripping with death, rushed across lines of draugr, swept over the lizard of the draugr commander, and the dead general was left burning madly, curling into a dark heap of rotten flesh and melting metal. His mount scampered away in flames. The ranks of the skillful svartalfs rushed with savage chants, the red-gold armored beast-men outpacing them on the flanks. The draugr crouched behind their shields, hissing and cursing the enemy, which hit them head on. It looked like the spears of the svartalfs lifted a thousand draugr to the air. They were pushed, hammered and slashed to pieces, and the enemy marched over them.
The draugr were shattered.
Their shieldwall was broken, many hundreds hacked down mercilessly, and the butchery began as, what I thought would be orcs, rushed to the draugr flanks, slashing and crushing them with glee. I retreated further to the shadows as the dead fled for the portal, many falling.
Then one svartalf, seated on a beast, rose in her saddle.
She was dark-skinned, wore a robe and a crown of silver. A yellow horn was hanging on her hip. She was hauntingly beautiful, and perhaps one of the Queens of Scardark, or the allied cities. Her eyes glowed with a spell.
She turned and she was looking at me. I was sure of it. Her mouth fell open with surprise.
I cursed and fled.
I saw my companions above me, rushing up a stairway under the ceiling of oppressive, heavy rocks. Blue and silver veins of metal snaked up with us, and I begged she had not seen me after all.
Kiera stopped. She looked down, her face grave. She cocked her head.
A horn was blowing. It was a thin blare and the sort that demanded attention, making my blood freeze with its intensity. There was a reverberating power in the horn, and it was clearly magical.
“They saw us,” Ittisana hissed from the the top.
“They saw him!” Cosia spat and pointed a finger at me. “And you thought I’d betray us? Here we are, fucked!”
Ittisana didn’t refute her and gave me an evil look. “You made a mess of things. That is the Night Hunt. A Horn of the Huntress. Kallista is the Third Queen of Scardark, and her troops are especially adept at finding fugitives. They blow the horn to signal the start of a …. well … a hunt.”
“And we are the prey,” Kiera agreed. “We’ll have to run.”
“Run,” Cosia smiled. “Run as they run. Though you cannot, because you have a human with you. We’ll never reach Scardark. Never.”
We climbed. We climbed in the darkness and then took a tunnel that ran steadily for a direction I’d never guess. I was begging we would lose the enemy, but Cosia was right. While the others were fleet and skillful, I was slow and afraid, and likely the deadweight that would get us all killed.
The horn was blowing again.
CHAPTER 7
We rushed on in the oppressive tunnels.
I thanked Shannon and Ittisana in my head for the spell of sight. It didn’t take long to decide the map we had acquired was a lifesaving device. Kiera held the book, referring to it every now and then, as dozens of ways opened up.
I was lost in minutes.
The tunnels demanded all of your attention. They were both uneven, with stairways and steps, and slippery rock slopes. There were signs and scribblings on some walls, and small chambers with dripping water and thick, glistening veins of ore. There was a feeling of constant pressure that made my chest hurt and head ache. The flight was confusing, a jumble of shouts, horn blasts, and elated and fearful emotions. I felt breathless, hemmed in, my heart thrummed with terror, and I tried to keep up. I heard my companions cursing, panting, their armor and weapons scraping on stone. There was a sound of dripping water on rocks, plopping and loud, and the rumbling grind of stone, which was probably natural in Svartalfheim. Our journey was much like running in the woods of my hometown when we were younger, during the night Napoleon’s hussars burned it on their way to outflank our army. Ittisana kept looking back at me, while herding Cosia forward. Their thighs flashed in the semi dark, as the females took turns on the winding route up and down and Kiera was just behind them, her hair a halo around her head. Thak was slinking along, sniffling and clearly worried about me, as my breath caught in my throat.
“Run, you runty, weak human,” Cosia spat from the darkness as I stumbled, fighting against the need to vomit. “Not so special now, are you?” she added and hissed out laughter, until Ittisana slapped her.
Cosia was right. I was a runty weak burden. I felt so unwell.
My chest hurt. My skin itched like mad, and I spat with disgust. There was blood in the spit.
We ran thus for an hour. More.
Dimly I understood the surroundings had changed into a totally unpaved way, with no sign of hammer and chisel on the walls. Occasionally, we had to squeeze through stalagmites, and crawl in low tunnels. We passed dark routes to the deeper depths where eerie sounds echoed.
Finally, I held my chest, and fell to my knees, and Thak, cursing, turned and pulled me along, half supporting me.
There was no sight or sound of our pursuers, but I had no doubt they were there, somewhere.
We rushed along and pushed to a high ledge. Ittisana pressed her palm on Cosia’s chest, and stopped us. The way continued on along the ledge for a mile or more. There, in the opposing wall there was the beginning of the next tunnel. The open space was beckoning like a lifesaving drop of magical nectar and I made to reach for it,
but Thak stopped me short.
I carefully looked over the side.
Below, a dark army marched.
With them, rode the beautiful svartalf queen. I saw her immediately. There were a thousand svartalfs with her, their armor gleaming dully, the lustrous white and black hair heaving as they marched. They were travelling the lower tunnels, and before them ran the hulking brutes, some coming back to give reports, others rushing left and right. “Kallista knows the tunnels well,” Ittisana whispered. “Steady, and be silent. You OK?”
I shook my head. “My chest. Head. Is there enough air here to breathe?”
She shrugged. “There is. But you do look sick. We’ll stop for a while soon. We have to get past this one chamber, and then we’ll be safer.”
“Safer,” I chuckled as I looked down at the queen below. Her face was still as she listened to a report delivered by one of the armored orcs. He was gesturing wildly, and Kallista nodded her thanks and whirled around. The lizard hissed. the enemy army stopped, and she gave out orders.
They spread out and faced many ways.
“What the—” I muttered.
“Trouble for them,” Thak whispered. “Get ready to move.”
Below, the thousand svartalfs surrounded the doorway. Bows by the hundreds were raised, spells braided together, and spears and swords aimed. Kallista was riding slowly behind her ranks.
Something moved in the dark.
Something big. Thak growled.
A creature entered the chamber, a large shadow like a mountain, and it looked around, clearly surprised. It was a jotun, though not like Thak, but fair-skinned. It was a brutish looking beast with crude clothing and rusty armor. It held a huge mallet. A horde of white-armored orcs followed, the armor adorned with a painted black maw.
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