Frostborn

by Lou Anders

  “Look at this,” he said.

  He held the torch up high, casting its light on the elaborate carvings.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a map,” he explained. “Of the empire.” Karn pointed out details as he spoke. “This is the continent of Katernia.”

  “I know that,” snapped Thianna, when, in fact, she hadn’t. She knew nothing of the wider world. She certainly didn’t know how wide it was. She had never wanted to be anywhere but atop her mountain.

  “They’ve put horse heads as markers for everywhere they’ve been,” said Karn. He replied as if Thianna hadn’t snapped at him. She felt a little guilty about that.

  “Here in the upper corner, wolf heads are clashing with horse heads amid a mountainous landscape. Norrøngard,” he said. Thianna was silently grateful that he had pointed it out before she had had to ask where it was. “The empire never got very far into our borders.”

  Thianna could see a great many more horse heads spread out in the lands below Norrøngard. In fact, horse heads stretched over most of Katernia.

  “So, all this is Araland and Saisland?” she asked.

  “What?” said Karn, stifling a snort. “No. Saisland is here,” indicating a very small portion of the upper left corner, “and here is Araland.”

  Not much bigger. Thianna felt a real sense of vertigo now. How could a land of such little people feel so big? How could it make a giantess feel so small? She hated to be small.

  “Now,” Karn was saying, “if you’ll come over here—”

  Karn stopped on the far-right side of the wall, where the continent of Katernia met the sea. He pointed to a line of icons carved in the waters.

  They looked like serpents. Winged serpents. Wyverns. And was there something else among them? Thianna saw that there were thin lines raised in the wall, leading from each wyvern to converge on a single crescent shape. It was almost like …

  “Your people,” said Karn proudly.

  “What?”

  “I think this is a clue to where you are from.”

  Thianna felt her spine go rigid.

  “I’m from Ymiria,” she said frostily.

  “Yeah, I know, but I mean where you are really from.”

  Karn realized his mistake almost as quickly as the words were out of his mouth.

  It was too much. This world she didn’t want to be a part of, this world that had come crashing into her mountain and robbed her of her life, this horrid reminder that no matter how hard she tried, how many games of Knattleikr she won, she would always be different. Always be an outsider in her own home.

  “I am a Ymirian!” Thianna yelled. “I’m not Norrønur. And I’m not human. Not from wherever these lizards are from. I’m a giant!”

  “Okay,” said Karn. “I get it. You’re a giant. Like anyone could forget that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that, I swear, you go around trying to outgiant the giants!”

  “I am a giant!”

  “Then stop trying to prove it!”

  For a moment, Karn thought Thianna was going to hit him. Instead, she turned and stormed out of the room.

  The Dragon

  Karn hadn’t been sure if he should go after his friend or not. In the end, he decided to let her work it out for herself, and he occupied himself with studying the wall map. He thought the object carved with the cluster of wyverns was a horn, and that the lines between it and the reptiles were like reins of a sort. What if Thianna’s horn drove the beasts rather than just irritating them? Perhaps they weren’t using it right.

  “I found this.” Thianna’s voice sounded uncharacteristically tentative. The giantess held something out to him, carved stones on a stone board. “I thought maybe it could replace your missing pieces.”

  Karn’s eyes lit up. He came over to see what she held. It was a board game, all right, though not his favorite.

  “It’s Gordion chess,” he told her.

  “It’s not Thrones and Bones?”

  “No,” he said. Seeing her sudden downcast look, he added, “It’s very cool, though.”

  “We could play?”

  “I don’t know the rules.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, but maybe we could play Thrones and Bones.”

  “With this?”

  “With some of it. I still have my board and half my pieces. We could use their footmen to replace my shield maidens. The pieces are a little larger, but, well …” He looked up at her and grinned. “I’m starting to get the strategic value of having tall women on your team.”

  Thianna smiled. “You’re on, Norrønboy. But don’t expect me to go easy on you this time.”

  Karn chuckled and set the board down. The footmen indeed made for good shield maidens, and its king piece was a good substitute for his missing Jarl. This time, he played the defensive side, while Thianna took the attackers.

  Karn tried to explain a little bit about the importance of the game in Norrøngard. He wanted her to realize that he wasn’t alone in his passion, that it was something of a national pastime.

  “Plenty of Norrønir are even buried with their game.”

  “Yeah?”

  Karn nodded. He thought he recalled seeing a set in Helltoppr’s Barrow, but that brought up unpleasant memories, so he concentrated on beating the giantess.

  Thrones and Bones was an asymmetrical game: one side (the attackers) had more playing pieces than the other. Thianna commanded fifteen draug minions and one draug leader, called the Black Draug. She had played ably for several moves, impressing Karn with her learning ability, when she asked about the Black Draug.

  “What’s this one do again?”

  “He can reenter the Barrow Mounds after he exits it. The others can’t go back in once they step out. He can also occupy the Jarl’s Throne. No one else can do that.”

  “Right. I remember that. But there’s a cost for bringing him out, right? I lose if he’s captured, right?”

  “Yes, game’s over if I capture him.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “What do you mean?” Nothing about his beloved board game was dumb.

  “Why can’t the others keep fighting? I mean, if somebody took out Gunnlod, I wouldn’t just roll over.”

  “Well, of course you wouldn’t.”

  “So why do these minions give up? Do they melt or something?”

  Karn thought about it.

  “There’s actually a term for it. You say they’ve been ‘released.’ ”

  “Released?”

  “Yeah. But the point is, your side loses if that happens.”

  “That sounds like they were under his spell or something.”

  “Yeah. But you lose.”

  “So the Black Draug has his forces under a spell, and when you defeat him the spell is broken?”

  “Yes,” said Karn, who wasn’t sure why she was so interested in the spell. “They are under a spell. And they are released when he’s defeated.”

  “Like your dad?” Thianna asked.

  Karn looked up at that. “You mean … he might not … he might be … He might not be … dead?”

  Thianna nodded.

  Karn was speechless, which was just as well because that’s when the dragon interrupted them.

  “I do so love visitors,” rumbled a deep voice that seemed to originate nowhere but echoed off the stones all around them. Karn and Thianna froze. There was no mistaking who the voice belonged to. Even though he hadn’t been seen in centuries. A figure more out of legend.

  “Don’t think that I don’t,” the voice went on. “I love visitors. But they come so seldom these days. It’s been simply ages since I ate the last one.”

  Neither Karn nor Thianna dared to breathe as they stared into each other’s eyes. “I would have introduced myself sooner,” said the voice, “but you were having the most agreeable conversation and I hated to interrupt.”

  Karn broke out of the paralysis first. He s
cooped his Thrones and Bones set, complete with the new pieces, into his satchel. Thianna shook her head. Even under the threat of imminent death, he wouldn’t leave his precious set behind.

  Getting away from the open wall of the private box seemed like a good idea to both of them. Quietly, slowly, they stood up and began to move backward to the door leading to the corridor.

  “The bickering was entertaining enough,” the deep voice continued. “But I was especially interested when the talk turned to tabletop games. You might even say I’m a bit of a gamer myself. Would you like to guess my favorite?”

  They had just about reached the exit. They were almost away. Then a great shape rose up from outside the box, nearly blocking out their view of the sky. It was a head. An enormous head. Covered in white, gray, silver, and blue-white scales. Some scales glittered and some were dull and dark. The head sported long, vicious horns. It was framed by ears scalloped like bat wings. It had a mouth that could swallow a horse. Worse, it had teeth the size of spears. With fires smoldering in its great nostrils and balefires burning in its eyes, the face was lit with its own harsh and angry light.

  “Come now. My favorite is …” His huge lips frowned in annoyance. “No guesses? Well, I suppose I’ll tell you, then.” Eyes the size of Thianna’s large fists held them transfixed. Eyes that seemed to burn holes right through them.

  “My favorite is Cat and Mouse.”

  “Orm,” said Karn, finding his voice at last.

  The head dipped in a slight bow, graciously receiving the acknowledgment. Then Orm Hinn Langi, Orm the Largest of All Linnorms, Orm the Great Dragon, Orm the Doom of Sardeth, smiled at Karn and Thianna.

  “You do know how Cat and Mouse works, don’t you?” rumbled the dragon. “No? My, oh my. What are they teaching the younger generation these days? The rules are quite simple. The cat chases. That would be me in case there is any doubt. And the mice—that would be you two dears—the mice … run.”

  Karn and Thianna bolted from the room. Karn hesitated in the corridor outside, unsure which way to turn. Thianna grabbed his hand and jerked him to the left. She had explored more of the coliseum when she went off to sulk. He hoped this meant she had an idea where they were going.

  “Oh, you do understand the rules,” the dragon sang out enthusiastically. “How delightful! It’s always a pleasure when you don’t have to waste time breaking in a novice.”

  Karn and Thianna hurried down the corridor, their feet ringing too loudly on the stone floor. They had left the smoldering remains of their torch behind. Now the only illumination came from what little daylight spilled through doorways or fell in shafts through holes in the crumbling stone walls. They ran as fast as they could and hoped they didn’t trip or turn an ankle.

  There was a large archway up ahead, another exit to the seats. Suddenly an enormous, scaled snout pushed through it.

  Orm twisted his neck so that he could face down the hallway in their direction.

  The dragon opened his mouth, but he didn’t speak. Just opened his jaws wide.

  Thianna yanked Karn aside. He lost his footing for a second, recovered his balance, and saw that she had pulled him onto the bottom step of a stairway, one leading to a higher level.

  “Up?” questioned Karn.

  “Anywhere but here would be good, don’t you think?”

  The wisdom of her idea was made clear when a cone of white burst from the dragon’s mouth. Karn would have thought it was a blast of snow and ice if he hadn’t felt the searing heat. Orm’s fire was so hot it burned not red or orange or yellow, but white. The stones of the corridor where they had stood until seconds ago glowed in the heat. Up the stairs they ran.

  “Step it up, step it up. You’re doing fine,” called the dragon in mock encouragement. “You know what they say, no lamb for the lazy wolf.”

  “What?” panted Karn. “Why in all the wide, wide world is everyone so obsessed with lambs and wolves?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care,” said Thianna.

  They were atop the stairs now, one level up. They ran down this new corridor, their hearts leaping every time they passed an open archway. Another blast of dragon fire exploded.

  There was a hole busted in the wall about head height. Karn paused. He felt compelled to look through it.

  He could see more of the dragon, not just its massive head. Orm had risen up out of the shadows of the hypogeum and had his face pressed into an archway. His long, white serpentine body coiled around the amphitheater like a great, pale snake—if snakes had massive plate scales running down their spines and two savagely clawed forelimbs.

  “He’s … so b-big,” Karn stammered.

  “Let me see,” said Thianna. He didn’t budge.

  “You really don’t want to,” he said, unable to take his eyes off a creature so large.

  Orm pulled his head out of the arch. Then he brought his neck around and one cold eye bored into Karn’s own.

  The dragon grinned. As fast as a serpent strikes, it dove for them. Karn leapt back. Then he shoved Thianna forward, tripping over himself to get out of the way.

  Stone burst from the wall as Orm smashed his head straight through it. Dust filled the corridor and loose stones fell from its ceiling. Orm rocked his snout back and forth to free it of debris.

  “I seeeeee you!” the dragon sang.

  More steps up. They took them as fast as they’d ever run. Karn heard a great intake of breath.

  “Here it comes,” he said.

  The steps in their wake disappeared in a haze of white fire.

  They ran on.

  The rings of the upper levels of the coliseum were naturally wider than the lower levels, and the arches to the seats were spaced farther apart. Unfortunately, up was the wrong direction.

  “We have to get back down,” Karn said. “He can play Cat and Mouse with us forever. And the light will be fading soon. We’ll be at even more of a disadvantage then.”

  “Why? You think he can see in the dark?”

  “Well, it would be worse for us if he could. So yeah, I figure he does. Plus, you saw how his eyes reflect the light. Like a cat’s. But if we can get down, we can get out. He’ll have a harder time finding us if we have the whole city to hide in.”

  “If we can get down.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You do that.”

  They kept running.

  “No private boxes up here,” Thianna observed.

  “Yup,” Karn acknowledged. “We’re in the cheap seats.”

  “Then why do I feel like we’re the show?”

  “Again, working on it.”

  Through another gap in the wall, Karn caught a glimpse of the dragon thrusting his head into another archway. It wasn’t near them, thank goodness. Karn had an idea. He murmured to himself.

  “Einn, tveir, þrír …”

  “What are you doing?” Thianna asked.

  “Shh. Counting. Fjórir, fimm.” He listened to the dragon draw breath, followed by the roar of the flames.

  Karn stopped counting and stopped watching Orm. Instead, he looked across the amphitheater to the tiers opposite. He couldn’t see the archways on the tiers below their own position, but he could guess where they should be by the archways he could see on the opposite side of the field.

  “Orm takes five seconds for the whole process. Stuff his head in a hole, draw breath, blow a blast of fire, pull it out. And we know when he is about to blow because he has to stop talking and draw a deep breath.”

  “Okay. Where are you going with this?”

  “I’m going out.”

  “Out?”

  “We both are. Next time he does it, we’re going to race out to the seats.”

  “Out there? With him?”

  “He’ll have his head stuffed in a hole. We’ll have five seconds to drop a level and get back inside.”

  “That sounds risky.” This was true, but Karn didn’t have time to argue about it. So he put on his best gamer smirk.


  “Not if you’re fast, big girl,” he said with an edge of challenge in his voice.

  Thianna met his eye, her lips curling up.

  “Okay then.”

  They found an archway with a small hole positioned near it, just large enough to be a peephole, near enough to be of use. Karn watched from the shadows as Orm considered where to thrust his snout next. When the dragon chose and drew breath, he took Thianna’s hand.

  “Here we go,” he whispered.

  They ran out of the archway into the seating area. Orm’s huge body was coiled beneath them, his neck forcing his head into a corridor.

  “Einn,” Karn muttered to himself as they hurried down the steps. Running down the tiers was harder than running down a mountain slope would be. One misstep and they’d be done for, sprawled in the seats with no chance to make it to shelter in time.

  “Tveir, þrír,” he counted. It was hard to fight the feeling of being utterly exposed, to keep from quavering at the sight of the dragon’s enormous bulk. No creature had a right to be this size.

  “Fjórir.” They were above the archway of the next-lowest tier now. Karn took three steps and then jumped down the rest of the way.

  “Fimm.” His feet hit the stones. Thianna landed beside him. The dragon began to withdraw its neck. Karn didn’t wait. They raced back into the shelter of the corridors.

  “Oh,” the dragon said. “Someone’s being clever!”

  Karn glanced over his shoulder. Outside in the amphitheater, Orm had risen up high into the air, his neck arched almost as if he were sitting back and reclining. He looked like he was enjoying himself entirely too much. Karn realized that some part of him would really like to fix that.

  Here, on the lower levels, stairs, exits, and side chambers were more numerous. They made it down another level using inside staircases.

  Next was a stretch of dark hallway covered with rubble. The dragon was suspiciously quiet. When they came to another archway leading to the seats, Karn risked another peek.

  Orm was gone.

  “What do you mean he’s gone?” Thianna asked when Karn whispered the news to her. “Gone where?” She pushed past him to gaze into the arena. There was no sign of the dragon. “Where did he go?”