The guards took me to a hovercraft, and I floated through the beautiful city once again. The return path gave me a new point of view on the buildings inside of the fortress, and I found myself thinking back to what Laufey said about Nordar culture. These people did have a technologically advanced civilization, but I didn’t know if that was because of their strange customs, or because they just got lucky with their ark ship. Survivor bias tended to obscure reality.
We eventually reached the harbor, and we parked our hovercraft at the foot of the white spire-building. I thought we would walk toward one of the shuttles, but the guards gestured for me to follow them into the white building. The inside of the structure was crafted out of what looked to be white marble, and every surface was polished to an almost mirror-like shine. They led me to an elevator and then pushed the button for the lowest floor.
We rode in silence for about half a minute, and then the doors opened. There were four men in dark blue uniforms waiting for me there, and they gestured for me to follow them.
“Are your clothes to your liking?” one of the men asked.
“Yeah, a bit hot, but I’ll probably appreciate that when I am on the surface.”
“You will,” he replied without emotion. “I see your supply pack. There should be a waterskin, two days’ worth of food, a firestarter kit, a length of cordage, and a utility knife. Can you confirm?”
“Yeah,” I said as I pulled the pack open. I found the waterskin, paracord, firestarter rod, and foil wrapped packs of food. I also found a thick wool hood for my head, but the man hadn’t asked me about that, so I decided not to mention it. The knife was hanging on the outside of the pack, and I checked to ensure the blade was sharp.
“This is the observer,” the man said as he gestured to a bowling ball-shaped device sitting on a table. It was black in color, and a red dot suddenly appeared in the middle of the sphere. The device seemed to have turned on, and it floated into the air about a meter above the table.
“It follows me around?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “It will start a few minutes after you reach Niflheim.” He held out what looked like a watch to me. “This is your locator watch. You can use the screen to find your next checkpoint. I have it set to English, and you can toggle through the menu buttons to learn how it works.”
“Got it,” I said as I buckled the device to my wrist. “What happens if this breaks in combat?” I asked.
“The observer will see, and we will drop you a new one.”
“What if I lose the device and the observer?” I asked.
“You will not lose the observer unless you try to lose the observer. If you try to lose the observer, we will take it to mean that you have quit the rite.” The man didn’t frown, but I got the warning.
“Still, someone could steal this from me and shoot down the observer against my wishes.”
“Do not let that happen,” the man said. “Do you have any other questions?”
“Guess not,” I replied.
“We can take him the rest of the way,” the uniformed man said to the four armored guards who had escorted me this far.
“Good luck, my lord,” said one of the armored men before they turned and walked back to the elevator.
“The pod is this way,” he said as he led me into the next room. There was a single escape pod in the center of the room as well as a handful of screens.
“Will someone be watching me through the observer?” I asked as I pointed at the screen.
“No. No one will be watching you.” The man nodded at the other three uniformed men, and they each pulled out daggers.
“Fuck!” I growled as I spun to my side to dodge a thrust from in front of me. The blade cut through the fur of my coat, but I didn’t feel it bite into my skin.
The back of my hand slapped his arm away from me. I tried to catch it with my fingers, but he was a bit too fast, and I was in the process of spinning around so that I could face the other three assassins.
The one on my far right slammed his dagger into my right shoulder, but I ignored the wound and punched him in the nose. His face made a crunching sound, and I aimed a kick at the center man. He blocked my leg with his knee and then brought his dagger down into my thigh.
I grabbed his hand to keep him trapped and then yanked the dagger out of my shoulder. The fucker tried to escape, but I managed to thrust the point of my new blade into his throat. He choked out a wet scream, but I twisted the blade to sever his vocal cords before he could get much of a sound out.
The fourth man made a quick slash toward my face, and I turned my head away. The tip of his blade still sliced open my cheek, and the dagger in my left thigh kept me off balance. I stumbled a bit to my right and then felt the first man ram his knife into my back.
“Fucker!” I growled and then tried to crack him with my elbow. He was too quick, and my blow scraped past his cheek.
I turned around to face the fourth man, and I found myself staring into the barrel of a pistol.
“Get in the pod,” the man with the gun said.
“Why not just pull the fucking trigger?” I growled.
“Get in the pod or I will,” he said.
“I need to die on the planet,” I spat.
“You are not as dumb as you look. Now get in the pod.”
“As if hanging from a tree for nine days wasn’t going to kill me,” I said as I took a step away from the pistol.
“King Vaish doesn’t take chances. Especially with the Prime Valkyrie.” The man nodded to the pod behind me. “I can shoot off one of your arms and throw you in, or you can get in.”
I thought about shifting, but I didn’t think I’d be able to do it before the man got the shot off. If Madalena’s father really had ordered these men to stab me and throw me in the pod, it was probably so that my murder wasn’t connected to him. It meant the king was fearful of pissing off his daughter, which also could have meant these men wouldn’t want to kill me up here, or else Madalena would find out.
She didn’t want to take the throne away from her father, but would my death push her enough to challenge him?
“You have three seconds. Two.”
“I’m going,” I said as I stumbled into the pod.
“He’s moving pretty good for someone I stabbed in the back,” the first man said.
“Niflheim will finish him off,” the fourth man said as he threw the backpack into the pod. “Get the observer in.”
“Here,” the other man threw the metal drone into the pod, but instead of smacking into the floor, the drone floated in midair and spun to face me.
“Good luck,” the man with the gun said.
“Fuck you,” I growled.
The man’s eyes narrowed, and I almost thought he would shoot me, but he just hit the inside button on the escape pod, and then pulled his arm out before the hatch could close on him.
Then I felt the thrusters engage, and the g-forces pushed my stomach against my back. The momentum made the blood pour out my cuts. The wounds were deep, and I had already lost a lot of blood from when my earlier chest wound, so I decided that I would need to shift for improved healing.
I buckled myself into one of the four chairs and let my rage beckon the animal out of my stomach. I was fucking pissed about being stabbed, so the beast came easily. My spine elongated, my muscles reformed, my vision changed, and my teeth emerged from my jaws. My fur clothes were tailored for my human size, and the seams ripped on my pants and jacket. My boots also tore open, and I cursed.
I had forgotten about my clothes. I was going to need them to navigate through all the ice caps on this part of the world, and now I’d pretty much ruined them.
The dagger stuck in my leg popped out during the change, and other wounds felt fully recovered. I glanced out the window of the pod and saw the massive battlefortress grow smaller above me. The sight angered me more, as I suddenly realized that I had blown an opportunity to cut a massive corner in this whole plan. I didn’t know
the four men in uniform would betray me, but I should have just taken them out as soon as the heavily armored guards left. Then I could have taken the elevator to the harbor, gotten on Persephone, figured out how to get Madalena’s crew off, and then warpdrived away.
But that wouldn’t have worked. The only way I could have gone through those guys was if I attacked first, and I wouldn’t have done that to men who hadn’t expressed any hostility.
I also couldn’t use Persephone’s warpdrive. It was still cooling down. I didn’t know exactly how far away from Queen’s Hat Nordor - 13 was, but I estimated it was over seventy light years. That would take over two months. Unless I could figure out how to use the hyperdrive until the warp drive’s cool down was over. Then I could switch back to them.
“Doesn’t fucking matter,” I growled to myself as the fortress got smaller in my view. I would have to figure out how to use the navigation system once I got back on Persephone, but my main concern right now was getting to these checkpoints as quickly as possible.
I thought about switching out of my tiger-man form, but these escape pods often times hit the surface of planets like missiles, and I felt it safer to stay in this form until I was safe on the ground.
As soon as I thought about landing, the pod shuddered as it entered the atmosphere. The bottom thrusters of the craft engaged to slow my speed, and the atmosphere screaming past the view windows of the pod changed to a light orange color. This experience reminded me of the time I escaped the Alloprize carrier with Zea, and I spent the next few moments thinking about her and Eve instead of the shit I was going to have to deal with once the pod landed.
The chute opened, and I felt a massive lurch in my stomach as the wind caught my craft. The bottom thrusters were still engaged, but they just came on in small pulses. I guessed they were being used to adjust the trajectory of the parachute, but I couldn’t see anything out of the window but sky and snow.
The pod landed with an impact that ran up my tailbone like a sledge hammer. I growled with surprise and then gasped when the pod leaned over onto its side.
The craft started to roll.
The movement was slow for its first rotation, but then it picked up speed for its second, third, and then my brain lost track of the spins. The lights inside of the pod broke when the craft smashed into something hard, the loose dagger on the ground bounced around the interior like a ping pong ball before it stabbed my left leg, and the backpack slammed into my face. I managed to bite onto the strap so it didn’t get away from me, but then the pod rammed into something hard again.
It was still rolling, but for half a dozen moments I felt weightless. Then there was another slam, and the side of the pod caved in as if a giant mallet had crushed the thick metal. This last impact caused every bone in my body to vibrate, and the safety straps broke a few of my ribs. They healed close to instantly, and I was thankful that I decided to stay in this form.
The last impact slowed the roll of the pod significantly, and it soon came to a stop. I waited a long minute so my head would stop spinning, and then I opened the locks on my safety harness. It felt like my seat was now on the bottom of the craft, so I stood from my seat and yanked the dagger out of my leg. Then I wiped the blade off on my sleeve and moved to one of the windows.
It looked like a shitload of snow and gray sky. I was happy that it wasn’t storming, but I couldn’t make out any distinguishing landmarks from the view inside of the craft.
I checked the device on my wrist. I was glad it was still there, but the rubber band around my much thicker tiger-man wrist was close to breaking. I unhooked it with a careful movement of a furry finger, and then I debated my next few moves.
If I left the pod now, I’d only have twenty minutes before I’d have to change back, then I’d be tired, and need to find shelter in a hurry. I was already in the pod, so it made sense to just return to my human form and rest here. I didn’t like the idea of wasting any more time, but there was no other choice.
I sat on the back pad of my chair and thought about the oceans of Earth. I thought about the palm trees and the sand.
I thought about Zea and Eve, but Madalena also entered my thoughts, and I felt my calm dissolve. I let out a growl of annoyance and focused my meditations back on the ocean. I kept thinking about the Vaish woman though, and it felt like my shift back into human form took much longer than usual.
But I did eventually return, and exhaustion filled my muscles. The door to the pod was on the left side of me, and I walked over to the control panel. I wanted to ensure there was some sort of lock on the door, but all the writing there looked like runes, and I had no idea what the buttons did.
I’d figure it out when I woke up. Then I’d get to the checkpoints, get off this planet, get back to Persephone, and then find my friends.
And I’d kill any man, women, or monster that got in my way.
Chapter 5
The howl of a storm woke me up from a dreamless sleep. For half a moment, I thought I was still back on Persephone, and I reached over to my dresser for where I kept a pistol. Then I remembered the descent to the planet’s surface, and I let out a sigh of frustration.
The inside of the pod had cooled significantly, and my breath came out in puffs of steam. I didn’t know if the change in temperature meant I just slept a long time and the chill had eventually sunk into the interior, or if it was just really fucking cold outside. Neither possibility was comforting.
I looked down at my boots and saw my next problem. The seams around the sole had torn apart because of my shift, and the cold air was tickling my sock covered toes. I grabbed the utility knife on my pack, cut a few strips of fur-lined leather off my coat, and then wrapped them around the boot so that the top part wouldn’t come free of the sole when I walked. It was a sloppy job, and it wouldn’t really help with the cold air flow, but it meant I’d still have the protection on the bottom of my feet.
I heard a beep above my head and looked up to see the observer drone. It must have turned on while I was sleeping, and the red eye made a cartoonish blinking motion as it studied me. Then it beeped again. Was anyone up in the fortress watching me? Was Madalena? I thought about her for a few moments and then forced my mind to the task at hand.
I looked at the device on my wrist. It was loose now that I was back in my human shape, so I tightened the strap and began to fiddle with the small control buttons. I soon had the instruction manual displayed, and I read through them as quickly as I could.
The device had three functions:
First was to tell me the direction of the check points. This was just a simple arrow direction pointer, like a compass, and a measurement of kilometers.
The second function was to tell me if I had made a qualified kill. It wasn’t clear about who made that decision: the drone’s AI, or someone watching me from the space fortress. Either way, the device would tell me if the last kill had completed the task. I needed to kill something during each of the three checkpoint phases.
The third function was to help the observer drone track me. The instructions said I shouldn’t take the watch off, or let it become damaged. The device looked pretty durable, and I doubted it would get damaged during my normal travels, but the screen wouldn’t stop a bullet or melee weapon strike, so I needed to be careful in combat.
I turned on the checkpoint function and saw a green arrow point toward the door to my pod. The reading showed I had 5,481.43 kilometers more to go till I reached the checkpoint. I figured I could traverse rough terrain at about 50 kilometers a day, but I would also have to hunt, get water, worry about shelter, and try to find a threat to kill.
It would take me at least four months to get to this checkpoint on foot, and then I would still have one more to go before a shuttle took me to the next planet where there were three more.
This rite could take me years to finish, and my friends didn’t have years.
“Better get moving,” I said as I moved to the control panel of the door. I didn’t k
now which button unlocked the door, so I pressed a bunch of them. Eventually, the door made a hissing noise as the air-seal broke, and I was able to push the metal open.
Bitter cold poured into the pod’s interior, and I gasped with shock. There was a terrible wind, and even though I didn’t think it was snowing, an intense gust pushed a bunch of snow inside of my pod.
I stopped pushing open the door and reached into my backpack for the wool hood. It fit over my shaved head perfectly and had flaps that covered my ears. There was a drawstring on the bottom of the hat, and I tied it around my chin. Then I pushed on the door some more, and the full force of the wind assaulted me.
“Fucking shit,” I hissed as the cold assaulted my face. I almost thought about closing the door to the pod again, but hiding in here wasn’t going to help my friends, so I stepped out and onto the snow.
I looked around the pod and then let out a laugh. The craft had come to rest against a rocky outcrop on the side of a snow covered mountain. The pod seemed to have landed closer to the peak of the mountain, and then it tumbled down a quarter of the elevation, slammed into a bunch of rocks, and then finally come to rest here. If the roll had a bit more momentum, it would have launched off this rocky edge, and I would have continued down the steep snow-covered side of the mountain. That might have been for the better since I could see the beginning of the tree line a few thousand meters down below me. Or, the pod could have smashed into more rock, and it would have finally broken open.
I was alive now, so I had reason to be thankful. I just needed to figure out a safe way down this mountain, and I needed to do it quickly, the cold was already starting to numb my toes, and shifting through frostbitten toes would probably be all sorts of painful.
The slope angle was extremely steep, but it leveled off a bit where the pod finally came to rest. I walked to the edge of the outcropping and looked down the snowy sides. The angle here was even more severe, and I didn’t think I’d be able to get down without an ice axe. Was this rite meant to start at the top of a mountain? Or had the fuckers who stabbed me changed the drop off location?
Prime Valkyrie Page 7