I draw my other blade. Obviously.
Freya crouches and takes a scoop of blood tinged snow on her finger. “There’s no essence left. Mortal wounds, all.”
“How many? Any guess?”
“No. After death there isn’t much unique left to intuit.”
I never measured blood on the battlefield. None, some, a lot, and my own; I had only a few metrics I used on the severity scale. That’s about as scientific as it ever reached. This...this definitely qualifies as a lot.
A discarded hook-spear lays among the wood shards, handle broken and nested in torn hunks of fur; boots or coats. Someone guarded the gate, but no one comes to stop me when I slip ahead of Freya between the broken doors.
Not all the light we saw from the ridge was lamplight. There’s plenty of that sort, oil burners hung from iron stakes in the ice, set neatly between the houses like any city of the west. But some of the blaze, and the black smoke and sweet-savory stench, comes from a bonfire in a wide clearing beyond the gate. Men in thick furs strip a pile of bodies, salvaging gear, clothes, whatever the corpses bear of value, before swinging them into licking flames.
Enemy soldiers? A war party? Men, and women, I see now, on the pile are dressed the same as those around the fire.
Each doorway I can see stands open. Round-faced, wide eyed women and children watch the scene. One hunches on her knees, yellow head bowed, sobbing.
Someone near the fire shields his eyes, takes us in and starts toward me through the carnage.
He’s massive, even minus heavy clothing, half a head taller than I am. His pale skin makes the ruff of his hood look like his own fur, animal along with his deep-set blue eyes. The man slows when he’s a few feet away, knees bent as he creeps in on me. “An...an aspirant?”
Bringing up my blade, I nod, eyes on him and on others who move hesitantly in my direction.
“And who is this?”
I don’t like the way he says it, like Freya is a piece of equipment or a child. But I get that they’re in the middle of some absolute shite, so I opt to hold my tongue.
“Freya of Niflheim.”
His eyes widen. “I am Genrig, chieftain of Verdajln.”
I nod to the fire. “What is this? What’s happened?” Introductions are nice, but I want to know what’s waiting out there in the dark. Or in here with us.
He looks back at the fire, the others, and meets me with red-rimmed eyes. “Artaois.”
“A creature?” Maybe the artifact.
“A what?” Freya doesn’t sound confused like I am. She sounds stunned.
He spits. “A curse. Our village is cursed, forced to exist here in perpetual night and fight the artaois to the last. And we’ve come to those last, the clever, canny ones who can survive the longest. And now...” Genrig hangs his head. “There are so few of us left.”
Doesn’t sound much like the artifact, especially not if the village bears the curse. “What kind of creature?”
“A snowbear,” breaths Freya, watching the gate over her shoulder as though our words can summon it.
That’s it? A white bear with a hunger for fur clad men? Genrig must see this thought on my face.
“Do you know the berserker, in your lands?” he asks.
“Uh, they’ve made the northern tribes of the Wastes famous.” Infamous. But I’ve never had to fight one, thank Heijl. Until Mynogin came to power, we kept a tenuous peace with the raven and dragon clans. After, the clans didn’t bother us. The threat of the Oryllix was enough to keep them well behaved.
“Artaois grow in size and hunger along with their rage. By the time we fought it off tonight–” He swallows.
I need to catch up fast. “Where does it come from? How the hell do you fight it off?” I’m starting to see the real kicker of this curse. The shadows even under a full moon are dense, thick and almost eager to come on the second a lamp flickers or dims. The Verdajln have to fight this beast in darkness that feels sentient, antagonistic.
Genrig presses a hand to his coat. “We were given a rod. By Mordenn.” His breath curls white in the fog like he’s cast a spell.
Freya gasps.
I feel the cold more than ever. Fuck me. “The god of death gave you a rod of influence?”
“To help with the curse. Though, tonight we provide him a feast anyway.”
Flames from the pyre lick to the sky, sparks showering Genrig with a prophetic halo.
“Who the hell cursed you?” Who among the Pantheon would Mordenn go toe to toe with?
“It’s a very long tale. One there may be time to tell, if you could help us. When the last artaois is gone, there will be time enough for náttmál around the fire again.”
The astratempus presses cold above my chest, making me all too aware that it’s ticking down. There’s a lot missing here, but I don’t have time to press the chief.
I wonder if this is the challenge, or a coincidental crisis, a distraction even?
“Part of my task as an aspirant is to find an artifact. A creature or changeling, female. Do you know of such a one?”
Genrig shakes his head. “Only the devil what haunts our coast.”
Time to roll the dice. “Freya?”
She nods, watching what feels like an endless cycle of stripping, praying, and tossing on the fire. “This is right. I don’t understand any better than you, but this feels like what we’re meant to do.”
The Gardeners words echo in my memory. Your companions are bonded to you, and trustworthy. Rely on their skills and opinions, when in doubt.
I nod, decisive. “How does the rod work?”
Genrig frowns. “I don’t know. Only that it wounds the beast enough to drive it off, give us a few nights respite. But it doesn’t work again for three moons; sometimes the artaois returns almost the second the rod begins to glow again.”
So that won’t help us. “Can you guide me to where it hides?”
A whole war plays out on Genrig’s face. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to send more men or leave the village less defended.
Cries rise up like the flames in the short seconds he considers my question. Then screams. Doors slam. Men at the pyre hunch and scramble away.
Genrig turns, wails. He drops to his knees and buries his head in his arms.
The pile of bodies vibrates, each naked form shuddering. A moan rises up from the heap, awful but sonorous, like it’s traveled a great distance to fill the dead.
“Genrig!” I need answers.
Curse, curse. He moans this, hunched and trembling.
Freya raises her staff and I lift my blade.
Rubbery and boneless, one corpse slithers up, dangled like a marionette. Then another and another. Their heads hang down, limbs bouncing. They twirl like macabre dancers, lifting into the air. Smoke belches from the pyre, turning their shapes into pale silhouettes above scream after scream from the villagers.
Corpse moans reach a pitch like mad, fevered bees. Heads snap up, and the milky orbs of their eyes shine with a sickly glow.
Freya raises her staff, snaps it with a single chanted word.
A golden glow lances through the night, connecting her to the grotesque display. The bodies shudder, droop, start to fall.
But only for a moment.
A ripple runs back from the pyre. Her healing is repelled, bouncing back in a wave that sends us stumbling. Freya cries out and drops her staff. Gray lines mark a tracery of her veins. It heals; I watch the corruption evaporate with one eye on the fire, where a vortex shrieks, throwing the bodies like kindling.
“Are you alright!”
Freya recovers her staff and straightens, flexing her hand. “Yes! At least, until something comes out of that!”
The smoke blackens, density giving it shape. Dull inky feathers, a sharp beak. The raven flies one turn around the pyre and the flopping corpses. One wing enlarges. The bird’s head and body disappear, feeding the wing as it grows into a clawed hand. It draws back like a slap, and on its swing gathers
all the corpses at once. Their collective scream crumples me to the ice, piercing my ears, my brain. White smoke and black hiss together in a column up to the sky, ripple like water, and vanish.
There’s a breath of silence, that same tense stillness, and wailing of women and children seeps from houses to fill the night.
“Genrig?” I’m still waiting for those answers. By how quickly he hit the ground, I have a feeling this isn’t new to the chieftain.
“Punished…” he manages to stutter on trembling lips. “Those taken are denied Fólkvangr. Their souls are dragged to Helheim.” He struggles to his feet. A smell fills the cold, hot, pungent, and foul. I’ve been in battle enough times to know the odor of a man who’s shat himself in terror.
Genrig is a fucking mess. Hell, I’m kind of a fucking mess after that, and even Freya looks a little paler than usual. We’re not getting anything useful out of Genrig. Someone else has to take charge.
“Get your men together. Whatever you can spare, whoever can fight. Weapons, armor. Quarter of an hour. My time is short, and it sounds like we have a lot of work ahead.”
Genrig nods, leaving on a humiliated shuffle. A few villagers trickle out, arms raised and pleading. He bats them away, disappearing down a path between two of the houses.
Men around the fire have recovered, though they’re only silhouettes in the dim glow of coal remnants. They trudge about, looking lost and aimless. Slowly they seem to be moving toward me. They probably have as many questions as I do.
Freya spies them inching closer and puts her back to the men, the village. “Something is wrong.”
“Well,” I gesture at pretty much everything.
“No. No. I mean...Genrig said Mordenn had granted them a boon to protect against this curse. But what we just saw?” Freya glances at her hand, flexes her fingers. “That was Death. That was Mordenn, I’m sure of it.”
“So he blessed and cursed them?” I ask, keeping an eye on our approaching friends.
“I know. Doesn’t make sense.” She looks to the gate, to the shining ghostly mounds of snowy hilltops under a full moon. “There’s more to this than we’ve been told. Maybe more than Genrig understands...maybe not. But we should be very careful. Pieces don’t fit.”
“Got it.” I draw my silver blade. “Two hands, two swords. I’m ready.”
Her mouth quirks.
“What?”
“What?” Freya lifts a brow.
“What’s that look?”
“My overwhelming experience with mortals has been watching them flee in terror or allowing themselves to be tossed around by the gods.” She shrugs. “I didn’t realize there was so much appeal to one who showed some...authority.”
“I’ve showed you a lot of things,” I murmur.
“Mmhm.”
“My authority is what’s impressing you?”
“Very much.” Her eyes flick below my belt. “But not entirely...”
“Oh fuck...it happens. In battle, before battle.” I try to tug my furs down to hide what my leathers can’t.
“Fear and bloodlust have that effect?”
“Yes. Yes, they do. Cockstand like an iron spike before almost every battle I can remember.”
“Such strange, curious beings. I see your amusement value to the Pantheon.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She opens her mouth, sharp tongue knocked and drawn, but the men hurry closer, shooed along by Genrig’s return.
He’s brought eight men equal in size and equally lacking in aggression. They each carry a torch, but they look like statues, giant and broken, hollow. Just shapes of men. After what I’ve seen here, I understand why.
Freya throws me a look that says we’ll have our work cut out for us. These men are essentially bait for the artaois until I figure out how to neutralize it. War axes and polearms are dressing; these hersir have no fight. I feel disgust; I can’t help it. A warrior should fight or die.
The men cluster an awkward distance from me and Freya, shuffling, murmuring.
One of them walks awkwardly and drops of blood pat the snow as he drags an injured leg. It’s not a mortal wound, survivable, but he’ll be no use in the fight come.
Freya taps him with a long reach of her staff. The light that surrounds him is brief, and he stands straighter almost immediately. His eyes widen, and he jerks his furs and hauberk away to see beneath. Vǫlur, he exclaims to the others. Wand-bearer; witch. The word goes up like wildfire among the men.
“So you have pacts and curses with gods, but healing magic is a novelty?” I ask Genrig.
“Anything that’s a true gift or boon is fearful to us.”
What a sad fucking place to be. I turn a slow circle, getting my bearings by the brightest star on the canopy above. “North, south? Which way do we head?”
Genrig gestures with his axe to a gate on the far side of the village, where boats rest overturned at the water’s edge. “We go down.”
I exchange a glance with Freya. “Down?”
“Yes.” Genrig sounds exasperated, like this should be obvious. “We cannot cross the ice. Ammit wait in the cold winds, animated by moonlight.”
“Soul eaters?” I clarify. This place gets better and better.
Genrig nods. “We have to stay below.”
Below what, I can’t wait to see.
-The Grunne-
Genrig leads us through the west gate, where the sea comes close and land slopes to make a natural launch for the longboats. By frost and ice along the low keels I’d say it’s been sometime since hull met water. If it’s always dark and the soul eaters wait in moonlight beyond the shore, I guess this isn’t surprising. It does make me wonder how the village eats, or trades.
The ice shelf extends silver white for nearly half a mile before cragging into frozen islands. When Freya and I arrived, water rippled between them; now the space is flat and black.
The tide is out.
Genrig and his hersir move one of the longboats, dragging it aside to reveal a cast iron disk like a kettle lid, but bigger. This is pulled away, too, uncovering a man-sized hole cut in the ice.
I look at Freya, wondering if she can feel my thoughts about a cagey group of men inviting us into a dark hole beneath the ice.
A small bounce of her brow says yes.
“It’s hard to hunt the artaois, even if we could leave the village safely,” explains Genrig as the others shimmy in handing off torches and weapons. “Safe passage is only beneath the ice, but with the perpetual night...the tide is unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable?”
His expression says the word means exactly what I think it does.
“When the smallest channels, the silt tendrils, begin to trickle enough that the flow can be heard, we have to escape to the surface and take our chances, hoping the ammit don’t smell us.”
There’s something when he says ammit that makes it sound like an afterthought. I didn’t see any signs, any hint as Freya and I crossed to the village. But I know better than to doubt out of hand.
Freya stomps and pounds with her staff. “This ice is nearly an imperial foot thick.”
Genrig’s face stiffens. “Thicker in places, out from shore. Some hersir escape, and some...They drown. They are collected from the shore at high tide.”
Well, there’s an image. “Ready or not…” I whisper to Freya, holding out a hand to help her down.
I’ve never been beneath sea ice. During a battle at Hauptia I took my men through the sea caves beneath the keep, but it was dim, hurried, and ball-shrivellingly tense. But those were stone, and solid, of the earth. This is ice, and no matter how thick, it feels like it could shatter, collapse onto us at any moment.
Moonlight on a white-glass ceiling reflects along the ripple of tide pools beyond our torches. Brine salts each damp breath and drops of sea water ping from above onto shells and black sand. One finds its way into my collar and another drop smacks Freya’s forehead. For a breath I see a gold star at her hairline, a
mark I’ve never seen before. Then the droplet weights and rolls, trailing pale face. Her smile when she catches me looking is a minor gut punch.
Something to ask her about later.
There’s something peaceful and almost wonderfully forbidden about being down here. It’s a place that belongs to the ocean, and we’re stealing a few minutes while her back is turned.
But Genrig and the hersir linger, eyes darting, axes and spears gripped in unsteady hands.
“Does the artaois hunt down here?”
“No. No artaois, no ammit,” whispers Genrig, voice echoing like the wind.
Freya nudges me. I know exactly what she’s thinking without needing to read her mind. These men have been driven to madness or embraced deceit.
Whatever comes, comes. I have Freya. I was ready when we climbed in, and I stay that way as we set off along a labyrinth of narrow raised fingers between the tide pools.
The world above is silent, and our footsteps scrape like far off thunder. I understand what Genrig meant about the trickling when the tides rise. There’d be no missing the sound with noises amplified by the ice. The silt channels, like veins at the base of the tidal mounds, are dark and dry. That, at least, is a relief. But no matter how many steps and how calm things remain, the hersir hold weapons ready, crouched and tense.
A splash somewhere out in the dark shoves them together, huddled. My blades jump to my hands unbidden, and Freya tenses beside me.
A pumpkin-sized chunk of ice floats into view in one of the deeper pools.
Ice. Just ice.
The collective release of breath is almost deafening.
The hersir turn as one and shuffle on.
Freya watches the spot, the ice and the darkness, face furrowed.
Maybe they were right to startle. “What?”
“We’re under something bigger than we can see,” she whispers. “This is more than we realized.”
“Yeah. I had that feeling. But we’ll watch each other’s back.”
She exhales and nods.
We turn and freeze in unison.
The woman who stands between us and the hersir is breathtaking. Pale and petite, softly blue-green, and nude. Her body is full-breasted and sleek, trim hips and long graceful feet. Dark hair spills in a wet mass around her face and shoulders, and it eddies and flows in the air, as if underwater. Unlike the mara, she looks very much alive, mostly human, and viciously angry.
Temple of Cocidius: A Monster Girl Harem Adventure: Book 3 Page 2