Struck

by Amanda Carlson

  Fen tipped his head back and laughed. The sound was a nice break from his hard edge. “Its juice, as you refer to it, is your sustenance now. You light up because your body drinks its energy for fuel. Valkyries cannot live far from Yggdrasil. They can find energy in other places, of course, but long bouts without drinking from the tree will lessen them, threatening their very existence. Your glow, as well as your smell, marks you unmistakably as a Valkyrie.”

  Could that be right?

  My brain wasn’t comprehending this conversation right now. Too much had happened, and I needed time to recover before I could figure everything out. Things were changing too quickly. “Once I take a shower, I’m sure I’ll smell human again.”

  Fen chuckled as he stood up. “It seems you have a lot to learn. Why they sent an innocent into my den is still unclear, but you will do well to consider yourself lucky to be alive. It was within my rights to leave you to suffer in agony with ettin poison running through your veins. I do not take kindly to violations of my lair.”

  “I didn’t violate anything,” I huffed, hugging myself. “Honestly, I just want to go home.” My eyes landed below. My blood had fully coated the rock and was dripping slowly onto the dirt floor. My head spun, my brain feeling light and funny. “Fen, I’m going to—”

  I slid off the rock, and everything went black.

  * * *

  I coughed, spitting putrid water out of my mouth. “Gah!” I gagged. “Why…why am I in the water?” I shook my head to clear the liquid out of my eyes, only to have more flow over my head.

  Calling this water was a stretch. It was more like sewage.

  “I have no bandages, and these waters are healing. It’s all this wretched place has to offer, so that’s why I took them over for myself.” Fen stood chest-deep in the small pool we’d been sitting next to, his arms supporting me, holding me afloat.

  My jacket, blouse, tights, and one lone boot were gone, and I was pressed up against his chest in only my skirt, panties, bra, and the white camisole I’d worn under my work shirt. At least he’d left some of my clothes on.

  “What do you mean ‘taken them over for yourself’?” I brought my hand up and wiped the smelly liquid off my face. “This water is gross.” I spit out more. “It’s burning my throat.” But as I moved my toes, testing my ankle and my leg, they actually felt good. It must be working. It wasn’t nearly as warm as I’d thought it would be either.

  It was hot, but not melt-your-skin-off hot.

  “These caverns are the most valued in all of Muspelheim, as they contain ninety-five percent of the water found in this realm. But these pools, in this particular cave, are the only waters that contain solay, a sacred healing element, so they are revered.”

  “Solay smells like fishy-mud mixed with rotten eggs topped with stinky garbage.” Vapors from the steam burned my eyes. The water was like a seltzer bath giving off a putrid effervescence.

  “Yes, the smell is very potent. The healing elements are a combination of crystal salt and other compounds found only in these caves. One long soak can heal serious injuries. The salt finds its way into the body and fuses to your internal cells, mending you. Your neck wound is already healed.”

  I brought my hand up to where Verdandi had slashed me with her nails. He was right. The skin was perfectly smooth. “And they—the people here—just allow you to live here in their sacred place?”

  “No, they don’t allow me anything.” He chuckled, causing my body to shake and the pool to ripple. I lifted my head up a bit so the water didn’t splash in my face. “When I was banished here, it didn’t take me long to find these caves. I needed water to survive.” He shrugged. “So I commandeered them.”

  “Huh,” I replied. “So I take it they’re not too happy about that.”

  “No.” He laughed. It was a rich, dark sound. It was the first time he sounded completely relaxed. “They are not. They attack quite often, in fact.”

  “How many?”

  “Fifty to sixty.”

  I’d just lowered my head, and I jerked it up. “Did you say fifty? As in five-oh?” I immediately envisioned a legion of ettinlike creatures swarming into the tunnels. My arms snaked around Fen’s shoulders without my permission. “Can they get in here right now? And by the way, what are they exactly?”

  “They are called fire demons, and they aren’t very big or strong, but they are tenacious.” He walked me over to a set of crude steps and set me down. The rocks were smooth and slippery. As my legs took my weight for the first time, I realized the pain was nearly all gone.

  “There is only one way in, Valkyrie,” he answered. “If they trigger the alarms, I will know.”

  “Then what?” I stood, making my way along the edge of the pool, testing my leg while trying to get a feel for the small cave. It was too dark to see anything very well.

  “Then I fight.”

  I turned to this man—no, not a man, a demigod—and watched as he dipped beneath the surface and came up again, his hair slicked back, water rushing in torrents off his broad shoulders, trailing down his massive chest, his tattoos barely visible in the murky water.

  He was a predator, there was no doubt.

  A very powerful one.

  But I didn’t feel scared of him. If I was smart, I should’ve been. But so far everything else I’d encountered in this strange place had been horrid and hateful. Fen didn’t give off that vibe. He wasn’t a direct threat.

  I wasn’t so sure how he’d be when I stole my dagger back. Maybe I’d change my tune. But for now, I had to play nice with the big, bad wolf. That was the totality of my genius plan. “Do you always win when you fight?” I asked curiously.

  “Yes.”

  “Well…that’s good, I guess.” It was a big, fat relief, is what that was.

  He eased over to where I rested with my back against the edge of the pool. I’d found a large rock underneath the surface, and sat half perched in the water.

  “Valkyrie”—he brought his huge biceps out of the water and crossed his arms—“you still confuse me. You came here unarmed, you wear no armor, you ask me if I fight well, you are unaware that an ettin bite will not kill you, and you know nothing of this realm. I know not what to think. Your kind fear me, they hunt me. Yet you do not provoke me. Please explain.”

  “It’s easy,” I replied. “It’s because I don’t have a kind or an agenda. I’m not here to kill you or to hunt you. I landed here by mistake, pure and simple. I’d never even heard of you, an ettin, a Norn, or any of this, before a few hours ago.” Geez, it felt like a lifetime already. Had it really been only a few hours? “This is not where I want to be. I just want to go home.”

  “I cannot help you get back to Midgard.” His voice held a note of sadness.

  “Yes, you can. You have my dagger,” I helpfully pointed out. “Just give it to me, and I can stick it into the rock and go home.”

  “You misunderstand.” He shook his head. “The dagger works in Yggdrasil, yes, but you crossed a boundary when you came here. This cavern is not directly tied to the sacred tree. The portal you emerged through is what we call a cillar. It’s an offshoot portal, not a true link to Yggdrasil.”

  “I didn’t come out of the tree? It’s not behind the wall?”

  “No, it’s not near here. The tree has many facets. Everything in our world is intrinsically connected to it. It’s our most sacred thing. It keeps us rooted together across all worlds. But, not everything touches it directly. That would be impossible to manage, even for gods. The tree itself has capabilities to reach out to things not directly in its path when it decrees it so, but it doesn’t work the other way around. You cannot create energy and space, even with the dagger.”

  “So you mean I came through a tree-made wormhole?”

  He frowned. “I’m not familiar with that reference.”

  “Like a secret tunnel or a trapdoor.”

  He nodded. “In a sense, yes. But what is still unexplained is how you arrived here, in this
exact cave. You are not supposed to be able to access this place. No one is. It’s an impossible ‘wormhole’. The gods destroyed the path of energy through that portal to the tree years ago. Even the tree should have found a different route.”

  “Why did they destroy it?”

  He shrugged. “Because I escaped by it once already.”

  I got excited, sitting up straighter. “Maybe my landing here opened it back up again!” I rose out of the water. “Let’s go check. If you know how to access the portal already, maybe I can open it with the dagger, and we can both escape!”

  Fen’s face took on a strange look, like he was thinking I’d lost my mind, and something else I couldn’t decipher. Finally, he shook his head. “I’ve already tried, Valkyrie. It was the first thing I did once you landed. I held my hand to it, and the path was cold before you even stopped rolling. No energy, no life. It seems a great impossibility that you were able to come through at all.” He looked at me quizzically. “If I hadn’t witnessed it myself, I would think such a thing unfeasible.”

  Of course he would’ve checked it first. He didn’t owe me anything! I sat back down with a thump, the stinky water splashing all over. I swiped it off my face with my hand, more than a little disheartened.

  If Fen could’ve, he would’ve popped out through the portal and left me there to suffer in ettin-poison agony with no means to defend myself, to eventually be eaten by whatever creatures lived here. Especially since they wanted their prized caverns back yesterday. “Are the fire demons people like us?” I asked hopefully.

  Fen hoisted himself out of the pool in one fluid motion, turning to situate himself on the ledge surrounding it. He moved with the grace of a dancer, which belied his bulky frame. He was still wearing his shorts, which seemed like it should be a relief. I hadn’t had the courage to look before. They clung to every single inch of him, his powerful thighs outlined in stark definition. They were utterly breathtaking. I’d never seen muscles stand out like that before. As he began to address me, I had to tear my eyes away from the spectacle of them and focus on his face, which was not much of a hardship either. “No, Valkyrie, they are in no way humanlike. Humans resemble gods because they were created in the same likeness long ago. Here in Muspelheim, nothing human would survive for very long.”

  That didn’t bode well for me. “What do they look like?”

  “Fire demons.”

  “Um, can you be more specific?” I slid off the rock and rose out of the water, finding my way to the edge of the pool. It took me two tries to make it onto the ledge and another blundering turn to sit.

  Fen had me beat in the grace department by a long shot.

  “They are skeletal thin, with skin as dark as night. Their eyes burn brightly, and their bodies are feverish to the touch. They have forked tongues, and their teeth are sharp, like bits of coal made to points.”

  Water dripped down my body, settling in my skirt. “They sound…delightful.”

  “They are not powerful beings, but their blood is acid and can devour skin. They lack any real battle skills and can be killed in numerous ways, unlike the ettins you’ve already encountered. In the scope of our worlds, a fire demon is among the least fearsome.”

  “Good to know, even though they sound fearsome enough to me. And, in case you’ve forgotten, I have nothing to defend myself with, thanks to you. So their sharp teeth might be enough to kill me if they get a good hold.”

  “You will not need to defend yourself. They will not get past me.”

  Absentmindedly, I pulled my skirt up, hoping to get the water to run out, and ran a hand over the dagger wound Fen had just given me. It was sealed, but tender. Then I brought my ankle up and crossed it over my knee so I could investigate the bite marks. The numerous punctures from Bragnon’s hateful incisors were gone, and the skin had fully knitted back together. I reached up and caressed my neck where Verdandi had gouged me, and felt only smooth skin. This really was a miracle healing pool.

  I glanced up to find Fen staring at me. I cleared my throat. “Listen, I can’t hide out in this tiny cave forever,” I told him as I uncrossed my legs. “Like you said, this world is no place for a human. It’s already inhospitable to me. It pushes down like a heavy weight on my chest, making it hard to breathe. It’s like being forced to live in a stinky sauna. I don’t stand a chance of surviving for any length of time. I’m going to need to find a way to get out of here.”

  “You are no human.” He jumped off the ledge and walked toward me. “You will find that you can survive in a lot worse places.” He was still wet, but less so than I.

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” I swung my legs around, dangling them off the edge. “I’m not who you think I am, and there’s no way I will last here. I need to get home.” I eased myself down and went to pick up my discarded clothing, which I spotted by the bloodstained rock I’d passed out on.

  “No, shieldmaiden, I think you are possibly much more than even I anticipated.”

  I turned toward him, totally ticked off. “How many Valkyries do you know who’ve passed out recently from blood loss? If Ingrid is any indication, Valkyries are strong and noble. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d faint unless someone had a sword wedged between their ribs.” I gathered up my clothing and errant boot, spinning to face him again. “I hardly think I fit the bill of a woman warrior. One bite of poison, and I was ready to throw in the towel.”

  “Say what you will.” Fen stood his ground, crossing his arms. “But I know what I saw to be true. No human could glow as brightly as you did. You are going to have to dig deeply, Valkyrie, because at some point you will be forced to live up to your fate. No human could land in this world. No human could traverse a dead cillar. You are no human.”

  “I don’t have to do any digging,” I grumbled. “I just have to make sure I get out of here before the fire demons flay me open or melt me with their acid blood. I don’t care if you believe me. If you’re not going to help me, I’ll do it myself.” I made my way around him, toward the fire burning in the small alcove above the pool. That must be where he lived, and I was tired.

  I would plan my brilliant escape tomorrow.

  As I took the few steps up the makeshift stairway, I heard what sounded like a flare gun, followed by the sound of a hollow firecracker.

  There were two more in quick succession.

  Pop…pop, pop.

  I spun around. “What was that?”

  Fen was a few paces behind me. His face said it all. “They are here.”

  9

  __________________________

  ____________

  “What do you mean they are here?” I cried. “The fire demons? Already?” There was another hollow popping sound. “That sounds like a flare gun shooting off a firecracker.”

  “They’ve tripped my wires.” Fen bounded up the stairs past me, flinging himself into his living area, grabbing a loose shirt, and scooping up several weapons from the floor all in one motion. “I have rigged lines throughout the cave entrance that are attached to small explosives. It will keep them busy for a few moments.”

  I rushed to the other side of the cave, following him, tossing my clothes to the floor. I plucked up my shirt and pulled it on. It stuck to my still wet body, making it harder to put on than it should be. Once I was done, I spun around and took a good look around. Fen’s makeshift house was rough, to say the least. There were a few cobbled together places to sit and eat, all chunked out of rock. A very crude-looking fire pit sat in the middle with a bedroll to one side.

  What I was really looking for was Gram.

  It was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s my dagger!” I yelled, fear seeping into every word. “Give it back. I need something to protect myself with in this horrible place. That’s what Ingrid told me when she gave it to me.”

  “Valkyrie, you are to stay here,” Fen ordered as he ran down the steps, shirt on, weapons at the ready. “Do not follow me out of this cavern. You will be safe here
. I’ll be back as soon as I am able.”

  “What if you don’t come back?” I called, fisting my hands at my sides. “I have no way to defend myself. You’re leaving me here to die again!”

  “I will return, shieldmaiden,” he said simply as he leaped onto a small raised platform, then jumped, landing gracefully by the tunnel opening. He turned toward me, his body looking powerful and ready. “They will not best me. I will always come back.”

  “Don’t you dare leave me here with nothing!” My voice sounded hoarse in my own ears. “I swear I will lose my mind, Fen. I will not stay in this wretched world without protection!” Gram had been my only sanity and lifeline since I’d been separated from Ingrid. Without it, panic would settle over me quickly.

  He paused at the tunnel opening. “There are a few iron rods buried under those stones.” He gestured somewhere behind me. “If the demons manage to get back here, which is highly unlikely, use iron on them. They wither and die if you hit a vital organ.”

  Then he was gone.

  I raced over to the stone pile he’d pointed to and fell to my knees. There was a small recessed area under one side. I used my hands to dig under it like a dog uncovering the best, most rewarding bone of its life.

  There, lying under a coating of sand and dirt, were two small iron rods, both honed to crude points. They each measured about as long as my arm. I got up, clutching them, one in each hand. They weren’t samurai swords, but I guess they’d have to do.

  I glanced around the small cavern.

  Now what?

  A loud screech rent the air, and my head snapped to the mouth of the tunnel Fen had just disappeared through. It sounded like something awful had just died a horrifying death.

  It was followed by a bellow of rage.

  The roar sounded like Fen, but it was a much rougher version, more primal.

  I searched frantically for a place to hide. There was nothing in Fen’s lair, so I ran down the steps and scoured the cave. There was absolutely no cover to be had in this tiny place. The walls were all smoothed out. There were lots of boulders scattered around, but nothing that could hide a body completely. I ran by the pool, hoping there would be something there, and found nothing.