The Call of Winter (The Harbingers of Light Book 6)

by Travis Simmons

  Before she could call again a dark elf emerged from behind Rorick and drew his blade across the man’s throat. Rorick gasped and coughed. Blood shot in a geyser from his throat, down the earthen cliff and into the pit below.

  “NO!” Leona screamed and sat up, out of the darkness and into the gray morning light.

  “Shhhh,” Muninn said, coming to her aid. “The children touched you. It was just an illusion. They played on your ability. Whatever you saw, it’s not real.”

  Leona gasped for air, trying to put behind her the vision she’d seen, but she couldn’t because it was what she feared. In her heart, it’s what she feared would happen.

  “Where are we?” she asked, noticing for the first time all of the bonfires around her.

  “Among friends,” Muninn said. She smiled. “The dwarves and the harbingers found us. We are headed to take back Haven and New Landanten.”

  Abagail slowed to a stop. Beside her, Skye stopped too. His eyes, like hers, were trained on the shadows swarming around them. Every step they took seemed to bring the shadows closer and closer to the path.

  The darkness was growing. The number of stars was lessening. When Abagail was on Eget Row before, her eyes had been dazzled by the number of stars she could see burning out into infinity. Now there was no infinity. Now there was just the present and the distant horizon. She could no longer see stars gleaming as far as the eye could see. The darklings swarming the Void had seen to that.

  But not once had the darklings came to them on Eget Row. Not once had the darklings swarmed them or harmed them.

  “Why aren’t they attacking us?” Abagail asked. “They keep getting closer, but Heimdall’s dead. Why aren’t they attacking us?”

  “There must be something of his power still remaining. Some small part of his power must still reside here, keeping them off the path.”

  “Then we better hurry before it’s all gone,” she said.

  Skye nodded, a frown ghosting his features.

  Together they went along the cobbled stones of Eget Row. Ahead they could see a glowing white light, like a candle flame that’d almost burned through all of its wick and was ready to fizzle out into darkness.

  “It’s him,” Abagail said with certainty. Her feet pounded their way over Eget Row before she fully realized that she was moving. As she drew closer, the glow of the fallen god illuminated another figure crouched beside him. His hair was graying but still recognizably red, his eyes blue. She pulled to a stop as Dolan looked up from the fallen god, and rested eyes upon his daughter.

  “Father?” Abagail asked. She slid to a stop on the slick cobbles. Already the coldness of the Void was creeping in making the path slick. Soon she feared the darklings would follow. “What are you doing here?”

  Dolan opened his mouth to say something, wanting to speak, but he couldn’t form words. He rose and rushed to Abagail, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tight into his embrace.

  Here he was, Dolan . . . Olik. Whoever he was, here he was. Not a man, not a human, something else entirely. The man who’d stolen the God Slayer from the Ever After. The man who’d left their mother, Mattelyn. This was the man who’d lied to her. This was the man who was responsible for everything that was happening now.

  And it didn’t matter. Once her father wrapped his arms around her, it was like Abagail had come home. She could smell the pine logs snapping and sparking on the fire. She could taste the hot chocolate on her tongue as she watched the snow fall outside their living room window and their father read to them. She was home once more, carrying water with Leona and tending the bees, stoking Hafaress’ Hearth to ward off any darklings that might stumble upon their home.

  “I’ve missed you,” Dolan wept into her hair. “You’ve changed so much!”

  He held her at arm’s length and just stared at her.

  Abagail smiled and didn’t bother fighting back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

  “How did you find me?” Dolan asked. “Where did you come from?”

  “I didn’t come for you,” Abagail said, swallowing back her emotions. “I came for the weapon that did that.” She pointed down to Heimdall. It was the first time she’d actually looked at the God since arriving. He was no longer white as snow, like she remembered, but graying; his skin losing some of the crystalline shine it held the last time she’d seen him. His eyes were blank and opened wide, staring up at the darklings swirling above him, dropping closer and closer every moment, but he saw none of it.

  “We better hurry then,” Dolan said. “Not much of his power remains. If we can make it to land before his power collapses, the Tree at Eget Row should protect us from the darklings.”

  Skye bent to examine the body, as if he needed to look to see what had killed the god. But that’s not what he was doing. Abagail watched the elf untie the golden horn of winter from Heimdall’s waist and fasten it to his own belt as he rose.

  “Darklings can’t come near the protection of the tree,” Dolan said, tugging Abagail away from the fallen god. “Only the darkling gods can enter there.”

  Abagail let Dolan drag her along the path. The darklings swarmed closer and closer. She called to her wyrd, certain that at any moment she would have to use it.

  “Not yet,” Dolan said. “If you start using your wyrd now, you could weaken the protections more.”

  “Why did you come here?” Abagail asked. She didn’t let her wyrd retreat. She had a firm grip on it, and even if she didn’t intend to use it until the darklings breeched the last of the protections, she had to have it firmly in hand.

  Skye was now holding his sun scepter. It glowed a bright gold. He hadn’t used it in recent memory, and the power within the scepter was full and ready for any possible attack.

  Dolan didn’t answer.

  Abagail pulled him to a stop. “No more lies!” she said. “Why did you come here?”

  “To stop this!” Dolan barked at her. He gestured around them, at the darklings coming ever closer; at the frost the crept across the rainbow road. The road was losing its luster, it was losing some of its opalescent gleam. Soon it would be nothing more than white cobbles crusted with ice.

  “How would you do that?” Abagail asked.

  Before Dolan could answer, Eget Row trembled. Off in the distance, there was a huge crack, and dust rained down around them. Abagail glanced up, above them another trail of the rainbow road wound through the stars, and it was shivering.

  The darklings converged. Abagail could almost see the last bit of protection Eget Row could muster, shiver against the press of the darklings.

  “We don’t have time,” Dolan said. “Ready your wyrd!” He grabbed Abagail’s other hand and started running.

  The land was within sight when the protective boundary collapsed completely.

  The darklings spilled down behind them, chased after them. The way ahead, the only way Abagail would allow herself to look, quickly clogged with darklings.

  “Now!” Dolan yelled.

  Abagail didn’t wait for the darklings to converge. She let loose with her wyrd. The golden light of the All Father’s waking eye cut a swath through the darklings before them.

  “Keep it going!” Dolan said.

  Burst after burst Abagail let loose. Each time she opened a spot, the hole filled up with more darklings. The going was slow. The air was getting colder and harder to breathe. Abagail wasn’t sure they were going to make it. Before them was a constant blaze of her golden wyrd. Behind them was the rhythmic pulse of Skye’s sun scepter as he kept darklings at bay.

  And finally, there it was. Dolan pulled Abagail through the last of the darklings and onto the soft emerald grass of that surrounded the Tree at Eget Row.

  The day before, they’d come for Gil.

  Rorick had fought them, of course, but there was little use in it. They were surrounded, guards everywhere in the cellblock below; darklings, dark elves, and Fen were above in the atrium. There was nothing fighting could d
o, but it made him feel better. He fought with every bit of his strength before he’d finally been beaten back.

  Gil didn’t scream when they took him. He didn’t curse his fate or his gods. He only went with the guards silently.

  Silence. It haunted Rorick more than if Gil had cried when they carried him away. Gil’s silence at accepting his fate was more haunting, more traumatic for Rorick than anything else. It burned in his ears and chased him into sleep that night.

  Today they came for Rorick.

  Before they even appeared, Rorick could feel the cold hands of darkling wyrd on him. He could feel the vise grip of the wyrd holding him in place, pinning his arms to his sides, his legs together on the floor of the cell.

  The door swung open, and the cell protested little at the shift of weight. His feet were grabbed and Rorick dragged out of the open door, his back and head slamming against the ground as he came out of the cell. Stars filled his eyes at the blow. Rough hands pushed him to his feet, secured a burlap sack over his head, and steered him through the labyrinth of cells he couldn’t see. He stumbled along the cold wet earth, wondering if this was what Gil had felt. Had he felt this certainty that he was going to die? Had he felt that he was ready for death? That there was no fight left in him?

  Had Gil tried to fight, and Rorick just didn’t see because some icy wyrd held him in place too? Had he tried to fight, tried to get Rorick’s help and just couldn’t? Had he watched Rorick beaten back, knowing the only friend he had left in Haven wasn’t able to save him?

  Or was he simply tired, as Rorick was? Did he see no point in fighting because where would he go? What would he do? How could he possibly escape?

  It seemed ages he walked before they finally pulled him to a stop. The sack was tugged from his head, and the light of the sun, gleaming around the white chamber blinded him. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see he stood on a stone platform before a large cauldron. The cauldron was empty, but it was wet with the thick, clotting residue of a dark liquid.

  The same rough hands pushed him down, bent him over a block, and held his head down.

  He closed his eyes and hoped beyond hope that it wouldn’t hurt.

  His heart hammered in his ears. He was beyond help; he was beyond fight. Rorick simply wanted this nightmare over. Maybe with his death he would awaken from a terrible dream, and he would tramp through the woods with Abagail at his side and tell her all about the terrible things he’d seen.

  Heat sliced his throat; a pinch of pain. His eyes opened in shock to see blood slip down the white platform, through aqueducts carved into the marble and out a spigot into the cauldron.

  And he was there, surrounded by green, surrounded by warmth and golden light. His arms were heavy and sore from helping Abagail with a load of wood to stock Hafaress’ Hearth, but he couldn’t see the hearth. All he could see was an endless expanse of wavering green grass before him. Along the horizon stretched a blanket of stars that glimmered and winked before him, as if welcoming him home.

  Welcoming him to rest.

  Haven was silent.

  The army of dwarves and harbingers had stopped some miles away from Haven, and Leona surveyed the horizon to see if she could see any remnants of fire and conflict as there had been the night she’d left. There was nothing. She wasn’t sure there were any fires going to heat homes.

  At the top of the mountain, the city of New Landanten shimmered in the sun like drops of honey resting at the peaks of icy stalagmite. The golden veins within the vast white marble of the city danced like fire, cheerily welcoming them home.

  The ravens called all other shifters to them. There weren’t many, but there were harbingers who had the ability to shift into large cats, wolves, birds, and other land animals that were less helpful, like house cats and small birds. With them, the ravens took to wing and led the shifters in, scouting out the area to see why there was silence. Why everything was still.

  Leona waited with baited breath. She insisted on going with the next wave, with the firebringers from Muspelheim. Rowan had only allowed it because she would be going along as well, and she could keep an eye on Leona. Leona hadn’t cared. Even if Rowan had said no, she was going anyway.

  Breath huffed from Leona’s lips in a vapor. She clutched the hammer to her side having already drawn the weapon, unlike so many others who hadn’t yet prepared themselves for battle. She imagined the harbingers she was marching with wouldn’t have much use for weapons, outside of their fiery ability.

  Leona was ready for a trap. At any moment she expected to hear an army rise up with screams and battle cries and charge at the waiting dwarves and harbingers. All that greeted her ears was silence, stillness. Not even a bird could be heard on that cold, still morning.

  Then the sound of thundering wings as hundreds of shifter birds coalesced around the army, swarming down and landing before the gathered line. Dogs and cats and other four legged creatures jogged out of Haven and to the gathered armies.

  The raven twins were the first to shift back to their human shapes. The air was filled with the sounds of tearing flesh, popping bones that slipped together and reformed into the figure of humans before them.

  Leona gnashed her teeth together, not able to get the sound of their shifting to leave her mind.

  Finally, when the last of the shifters came to human form, Rowan spoke. “What’s going on in there? Is there a trap?”

  “None that we can see,” Huginn told her. “It’s empty. So is New Landanten.”

  “There’s more,” Muninn said. She glanced at her sister, obviously not wanted to say what they saw. She was disturbed, her normal smiling face replaced with a grim mask.

  “Out with it,” Rowan barked. Huginn cast a sharp glance at the harbinger, but if Rowan noticed it, she didn’t let it affect her.

  “We think they got their unclaimed harbingers,” Muninn said.

  “There were many places that smelled of death,” Huginn said. “A strong scent of blood coming from New Landanten.”

  “And many piles of bodies, more than could account for a struggle from the night they took over,” Muninn said. She didn’t let her dark eyes turn up to see Leona’s face.

  “Was Rorick among them?” Leona asked, stepping forward. She didn’t want to contemplate it, that Rorick might be dead, that she might not ever see him again. It was almost more than she could bear. Bile rose in her throat, but she wouldn’t let it rise further. She swallowed it back. “Did you find Rorick?”

  Muninn shook her head.

  “That’s what I feared,” Olice said.

  “What is?” Rowan turned to the elf.

  “Prisoners infected so the dark elves could use their blood to open scepters.”

  Rowan frowned, finally understanding what had taken place.

  “That would make the most sense,” Huginn nodded.

  “Should we even check the villages?” Rowan asked. She spared a moment’s glance for Leona. She wasn’t asking her daughter; she was checking to see how she’d react.

  “They are empty, likely everyone is already in the Fey Forest,” Huginn said.

  “Our best bet would be to go to the Fey Forest immediately,” Muninn said. “Who knows how long they’ve been gone. They could be preparing to open the scepters as we speak.”

  Leona’s mind was racing. She tried not to think of all the people she’d left behind. The few friends she’d made. Before she had a chance to let her mind drift too far into her dark thoughts, the army was moving toward the Fey Forest.

  The army continued along its path, skirting the edge of the town. Leona tried to keep her eyes to the way ahead, to the skies, searching for darklings, anywhere but the burned out town. She found her eyes constantly straying back to the husks of houses, the charred walls that lay fallen into the middle of cobbled streets. The bones of houses stood, their beams charred and blackened, looking as if one strong gust would blow them away to nothingness.

  Halfway up the mountain, Leona witnessed a
large pile of bodies halfway between Haven and New Landanten. She wondered if there was anyone she knew in the pile. She found herself stopping to gaze at the rotting bodies. Her mind was consumed with thoughts of Rorick. Maybe that body at the very top with the beard and the dirty blond hair was his? But it was already bruising and discoloring and from her distance, it was hard to tell anything more than it was a body in the early stages of rotting.

  Rowan stopped beside her, her eyes fixed on the pile as well. She allowed a few moments of silence, the army streaming around them and toward the Fey Forest. Then, with a hand on Leona’s shoulder, she steered the girl away from the sight and to the Fey Forest.

  Leona allowed her to steer her. Her thoughts were too far gone to fight any longer. All the loss, all the death. She’d seen too much. Her head throbbed with tears she wouldn’t allow herself to shed. Her throat constricted, refusing to let the sob issue past her lips.

  Streamers of blackness cut the sky, smoldered the clouds, turned the heavens to trails of embers. Darklings were coming, but they wouldn’t reach the army. There were too many harbingers from Muspelheim for Leona to see any action from the few remaining darklings.

  Rowan pulled Leona close as streamer after streamer of darkling was cut from the sky with a blasts of fire from hundreds of harbinger’s hands.

  Mother and daughter stopped. Rowan pulled Leona into her embrace, and the first of many tears Leona would shed slipped from her eyes.

  Around her the sound of battle rose. Darklings tumbling from the skies as harbingers cut them down. Bodies falling to the earth as their shadowy existence was cut short by cleansing fire. Leona had no mind for it. She had no fight left. The hammer that could cause such devastation hung at the girl’s hip, untouched.

  What was the point? So many people were already dead and gone. Would she ever see Rorick again? Would she ever see Abagail again? Would she die here this day?

  Rowan’s arms tightened around her. Leona slipped her arms around her mother’s waist and soaked in the warmth of the white-haired lady. For a moment, Leona just existed in the light and the love she felt flowing from her mother. The only family she had left.