by Travis Bughi
“Emily,” Takeo spoke up. “You know what Jabbar is going to do, right? He’s not going to stay in Savara. He’s going for Lucifan.”
Emily sighed and went to Takeo. She grabbed his hands and helped lift him to his feet. Then she grabbed his chin and pulled him close.
“Wasn’t that Katsu’s plan anyway?” she said. “I don’t see how this changes anything, other than the fact that I’d rather face Katsu than Jabbar. You’re forgetting I have a colossus.”
“And I don’t think you realize what kind of a challenge Jabbar will be. He can change his appearance, Emily. We could defeat his entire army and still not catch him. We’ll be surrounded by faces we don’t know, and even those we do, and anyone could be him. The colossus obeys you alone, meaning you possess the only risk to his conquest of Lucifan—and maybe the rest of the world if he conquers Savara, as well. Not even Lady Xuan can stand against that much might, and I sincerely doubt her empire will survive her death. Juatwa will splinter again, as it always does, and Jabbar will be there to enslave it once and for all.
“If there is anyone he fears, it’s you, and it’ll be in Lucifan he’ll kill you. In a city so full of people that you bump into strangers constantly, all he’d need would be to get within arm’s reach of you.”
And that’s when it hit Emily. She saw it seeping into his eyes, stiffening down his back, and lingering on his lips. It was something she’d seen so rarely in him, if at all, that it had escaped her until this moment. She understood why he was no longer calm.
He’s afraid, she gaped. He fears for my life.
Emily tried to think of some comforting words, but nothing came to mind. Everything Takeo said was true, or at least sounded true, and she could no more lie to him than she could to herself. So, instead, she pulled Takeo into her arms and pressed a palm to the back of his neck. His arms went around her and squeezed tight. She couldn’t feel his heat through their layers of clothing, but it cut off the cold wind long enough for her to generate her own warmth inside her clothes.
“The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing it’s there,” she whispered into his ear. “We’ll be careful.”
“We need to get to Lucifan first,” he replied.
That’s my samurai, Emily smiled.
“Then let’s get moving,” she said, breaking away from him. “I’m freezing.”
Chapter 9
During the battle, up until their lives were miraculously saved, Emily had forgotten they’d passed into a new land. It didn’t take her long to remember, though. The North was not Khaz Mal. There were dragons in Khaz Mal, along with dwarves and the occasional cyclops. The mountains were cold, rocky, and riddled with caves and other places to hide. Food and trees were scarce, but shelter was plentiful. Emily had a map that told her where to go and could rely on the sun to rise, provide light, and indicate direction.
She found no such luxuries in the frigid wastes of The North.
The land of vikings was mostly flat, mostly frozen, and mostly dark. The further the two of them traveled, the less of the sun they saw. There were a few hills made of windblown snow or small mountains made of ice-covered rocks. Sometimes there were lone boulders, which provided shelter from the ever blowing wind, but usually Emily and Takeo’s only option was to put their heads down and barrel forward into the biting cold that worsened with every step.
In short, Emily was miserable. The North was like Savara, only with completely opposite weather, which somehow made it harsher because she only had so much clothing to cover up with. Her teeth were always chattering, her fingers and toes were a perpetual numb, and her ears and nose stung with every gust of wind.
At least back in Khaz Mal, they would occasionally work up enough sweat and heat to peel off their hoods, but that had yet to happen in The North. They traveled for days, dangerously short on food, and never once felt warm enough to remove a single article of clothing.
Not even their nights were as warm as they used to be. They covered up with every blanket and piece of cloth they carried and snuggled as close as they could, and yet still Emily woke up five times a night to pull a lingering limb in between their bodies to warm it up.
Never mind the times she had to wake up to pee.
It didn’t take long for Emily to admit she had no idea where she was going. She whispered it one night to Takeo, hoping he’d have an answer.
“I’ve never been here, either,” he answered. “We need to figure this out, though. Our food won’t last forever.”
“I wish that Ingrid had given us some direction,” Emily said through chattering teeth.
Takeo pulled her face to his chest and didn’t wince when her cold nose touched his skin.
“We were too lucky there,” he said. “I thought those orcs were going to get us for sure.”
“It wasn’t luck. They were watching us. I think . . . I think there are others that watch us, too.”
“Then why doesn’t one of them point out the right direction?” Takeo huffed.
They wrapped around each other as tight as they could, intertwining their legs more out of necessity than lust. The cold bit into Emily’s toes, and she tucked them into Takeo’s heel. He wasn’t any warmer than her, but he was warmer than The North.
Emily frowned and mumbled into Takeo’s chest, “There are people up here. I know it. We just have to find them.”
“Let’s pull together what we know, then,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll go first. Besides valkyries and humans, I know of only two other creatures that live up here: griffins and wargs. I’ve never seen either, but I have seen griffin claws, which are used to cure illnesses in Juatwa.”
“Lucifan, too. I’ve heard them being sold.”
“Do you know what they look like?” he asked.
Emily shook her head in the darkness under their blankets and clothes.
“I’ve only had them described to me,” Takeo admitted. “Supposedly, they are like sphinxes, but without a human face. Wargs, I’ve heard, are similar to komainu, but with thicker fur and no mane. Griffins can fly, but wargs travel in packs.”
“I know vikings use wargs,” Emily said, raising her chin. “They use them as mounts and as a food source. I think I heard they even collect their milk.”
“So we find wargs, we find vikings?”
Emily sighed. That wasn’t a good enough answer. She didn’t know how to find wargs anymore than she knew how to find vikings, and she was not entirely convinced finding wargs was a safe idea. If they were like komainu from Juatwa, then they would consider humans a pleasant meal, unless they were trained. Actually, out here, anything edible could be considered a pleasant meal.
“Food!” Emily said, almost gasping the word. “Of course, food.”
“Yes,” Takeo’s eyes widened as he followed her thoughts. “Where there’s food, there will be people.”
“The ocean! Vikings are nothing if not sailors. We have to find the ports. If we reach water, we’ll be easily within sight or traveling distance of a town, or at least a home.”
Emily’s heart soared, and she pressed her hands against Takeo’s bare skin. He kissed her smile.
“We can use the map for that,” he said. “There aren’t any cities on it, but the dwarves drew the mountain ranges, and those mountains end where the ocean begins.”
“Yes!” Emily smiled back. “We won’t die just yet!”
“At least not here.” Takeo chuckled.
They slept better that night, and in the morning, they consulted their map and headed for the nearest access to water.
The Khaz Mal Mountains were divided into two parts, East and West. Although either end was large, the middle fragmented as it thinned, leaving many natural harbors along The North’s southern end, which were protected from the ocean’s harsh storms and currents. That was where vikings made their ports and also where they made their homes. Or at least, that’s what Emily had surmised and hoped to find true. That Takeo thought it a reasonable expectation gave her the c
onfidence to press on.
They headed for the mountains again, this time to follow their line west in the hopes that they would find a viking port. They found a forest first.
Emily nearly wept when they stumbled upon the grove thick with trees as tall as those in the Forest of Angor. Thanks to the snow-filled wind, she had failed to see them until they were almost upon her. The trees loomed out of the snow, tall and strong, towering in the white air with audacity. Emily smiled, heart soaring, while Takeo gaped and let his arms drop.
He had never seen trees this big.
“Wow,” the samurai muttered. “I was beginning to wonder how vikings could make ships out here.”
“Come on. We must be getting close!” Emily grinned, grabbing Takeo’s hand and pulling him into the trees.
The moment they were inside, Emily noticed that the wind’s strength plummeted, though it whistled through the trees, which grew so close together that Emily and Takeo could seldom walk abreast. It was as if the trees thought proximity meant survival. Emily glanced around and took quick note of the differences she saw.
These were not like the trees of Angor.
For one, all the trees were the same kind, not a plethora of different kinds as in the Forest of Angor. These trees had no leaves, but instead bore thick, green needles that sprouted out to the length of a finger. The needles didn’t hold the snow well, and occasionally Emily heard the soft thud of snow plopping to the ground. It made her and Takeo jump and whirl towards the sound, but nothing ever followed. Neither did these trees sway so much. They stood firm, planted solidly with no intention of being moved. When Emily touched one, she recoiled. The tree was so hard and cold that it might have passed for stone, and for a moment, Emily wasn’t sure they were trees at all.
“These are amazing,” Takeo whispered.
She assumed he whispered because of the pervasive silence. With the lessened wind and snow filled air, sound was deadened in all directions, reminding Emily of being under water. She could hardly hear herself breathe.
“This is good,” she said as she reached for a branch and tugged.
It gave a surprising amount of resistance, but eventually broke, and Emily stumbled back with it in hand. She checked its size, visualized the arrows she could make from it, and then broke it up into smaller pieces she could stuff in her pack. The sap was thicker and stickier than she’d expected. Somehow that seemed important.
“Where should we go now?” Takeo asked.
“Still south,” she said, indicating with her chin, “until we find water or people.”
They found both. More specifically, at the edge of the forest, they found a breach in the Khaz Mal Mountains that led to a small cove, which they reached just as the sun set behind the mountains. In the cove, they found a village of half a dozen houses made out of logs and sealed with frozen mud. Several small boats and one viking ship were pulled up onto the shore facing the homes, and Emily trembled with excitement.
“Ha!” She clutched Takeo. “We won’t starve after all!”
“I hate to be pessimistic,” he replied, “but I’m not yet convinced we won’t.”
His words came from reading the reactions of those few people who were sitting outdoors and watching them enter. They gave Takeo and Emily such strange and exasperated stares that Emily was sure she’d been mistaken for some foreign invader.
But then again, perhaps she was.
Emily lifted a hand to call out to them, but they raised their noses and headed indoors. One door slammed, and then another, and Emily found herself alone except for Takeo and an old man sleeping in a rocking chair on his porch. He was bald, but had a grey beard that curled down to his bellybutton. He wore a one-piece, wool pajama suit, and hanging across the back of his rocking chair was a sheathed sword. His snores were loud in the absence of other noise, and Emily cleared her throat to try to stir him.
Sleeping in this weather, she noted. These people are harsh.
“Hello!” she called out when the old man didn’t rouse immediately.
The old man shook awake, squinted at Emily and Takeo, and then reached a hand toward his sword’s handle. Emily quickly raised both of hers to show they were empty.
“Aye, hello,” he called back. “You come here to kill me?”
“No!” Emily waved her hands and shook her head. “We’re just looking for shelter and food.”
“Damn.” The old man sighed and let go of his sword. “How’s an old man going to get to Valhalla? Go speak to Jarl Valgrith. That house there.”
He pointed to the house nearest the viking ship, and Emily looked to Takeo, who offered a shrug. Jarl was the title of lordship for vikings, similar to daimyos in Juatwa and warlords in Savara. Seeing no other option, they crossed to the house and knocked on the door. Around them, night was coming, and the sky and water darkened faster than Emily’s eyes could adjust. Lantern light was already glowing eerily around the door’s bottom edge—there were no windows—and shadows danced across the light as they heard heavy footsteps approach.
The noise was misleading, though, as a tall, but not particularly large man opened the door. He was big for a human, but Emily judged him small for a viking, especially for a jarl. His face was scarred from some kind of past disease, and his shirtless chest exposed a nest of thick, black hair on a wiry torso with arms that were extremely defined along their muscular curves. He wore thick pants and heavy boots and, upon seeing two faces he did not recognize, immediately hefted a battle axe from where it was sitting just inside the doorway.
“Wait! No!” Emily shouted and held up both hands. “We’re just here for food and lodging!”
The viking froze, glanced from Takeo to Emily, and then lowered the weapon. His face was stained with confusion, though.
“Didn’t you hear us yelling to the old man?” Emily asked. “Are you Jarl Valgrith?”
“Aye, that’s me,” the man said, his voice a fraction higher than his black chest hair suggested it would have been. “And no, I didn’t hear anything. Lost a lot of hearing to a pirate cannon. Did you two want something?”
“Food and lodging,” Emily repeated. “We’re travelers—just come over Khaz Mal. We’re looking for Jarl Ragnar Ragnarson. Do you know of him?”
“I knew of him, yes,” the jarl said. “He’s been dead for some time, though.”
Emily’s heart skipped and then dropped into her stomach. She felt her throat go dry and her cheeks twitch.
“How’d he die?” she asked.
“Rumors say mutiny,” he said and shrugged. “Look, I don’t have spare lodgings unless you’re sharing my bed, little lady. Judging by how close your friend is standing near you, I’m guessing you’ll decline, and I’m too weary to strike him down and claim you this late at night.”
Takeo smirked.
“So,” the viking continued. “You head back to the old man you said you were yelling at—his name is Gelik Gnorison—and ask him for a room. If he says no, you keep knocking on houses until someone decides to be nice. If you get to the end of the line and don’t get any offers, you can sleep under my porch here. I’ll see you two in the morning, and we’ll see how I feel about talking to you then.”
He slammed the door in their faces, and Takeo shook his head.
“He didn’t even ask us our names,” he muttered.
“Maybe it’s better that way.” Emily pulled her lover’s collar down and kissed his lips. “And I’m sure we’ll find better company elsewhere. Let’s go see if we can find a place to stay. I never thought I’d miss the presence of a roof so much.”
They were lucky. The old man let them stay, and he was, indeed, much more courteous. Gelik had a spare bed that he said belonged to his son, who had already made the trip to Valhalla several years back. In return, all he asked for was some news from the world—and a story from Takeo once he saw the katana he carried. From Emily, he asked her to make a fire, which proved easy enough once she found the wood pile outside.
“Do
you chop all this yourself?” she asked.
“It’s the only thing that keeps me alive these days,” Gelik responded. “I don’t want to die in my bed, but the jarl won’t take me out on his voyages. He took my son, but doesn’t have the decency to provide an old man a good death. So I chop wood and hope when the time comes I can still raise a sword. Now, tell me of the world beyond this cesspool I call home.”
They told him the news of Juatwa, of the war and the new Empress. From that, Takeo told Gelik of the final battle that had decided it all, of how the Old Woman of the Mountain had used ships to transport siege works and thus lay waste to Katsu’s weary forces.
“Catapults on ships,” Gelik mused. “You’d think that’d be something we vikings would have thought of.”
Emily stoked the fire and was pleasantly surprised by how easily it abated the chill. She stripped off many layers of clothing and yet still felt warm. For the first time in too long, her skin did not tense up into tiny bumps.
The warmth was also comforting. In a short time, she began to yawn, and Gelik’s eyes were fluttering. Takeo took long blinks, but his voice stayed strong throughout his tale until Gelik passed out in the wooden chair that he’d brought inside. Emily and Takeo draped blankets over the old man and then climbed into the unused bed. Takeo soon fell asleep, but as tired as Emily felt, it took her a while to doze off.
She worried for her brother. Valgrith’s words, speaking of mutiny and a dead Ragnarson, lingered in her mind.
Please, she thought to no one in particular, let it not be Nicholas.
And then sleep came, and she passed into the body of another, this one cold and stony. Her consciousness filled the colossus’ hallowed soul—if it could be called that—and she coursed through it like ghostly lifeblood. She directed the statue as she chose. She could sense things about it now. She saw through its eyes, felt through its stony fingers, and sensed the deathly cold of the water around it. The colossus had been underwater for so long that algae was beginning to grow all over it. Instead of untouched stone, the colossus was a patchwork of green, brown, and grey—parts of it even felt slippery—and Emily felt guilty about that for some reason.