“Can you save him?” he asked her.
She stood glaring down at Donehogawa. With a low growl, she jerked her snout upward.
“If you save him, I will come willingly,” he said.
She seemed to smile. She opened her mouth and forced the word mathur past her rubbery lips. She began to shrink and lose her fur. Her face flattened back into that of a beautiful woman’s. Blonde hair grew from her scalp. When the transformation ended, she stood before him, naked and unashamed.
The two wendigos lurked behind her, yipping and nipping at one another.
“Ignore them,” she said with a vain smile. “If I save your friend, you will enter my service until your death.”
He nodded. “I will.”
“You will become my servant, eventually my vassal. In the land of the gods, I am a queen, and many such as yourself serve me.”
“Yes. Anything you want.”
She gestured at the dead braves lying in the clearing. “Choose one,” she commanded.
“What?”
“Choose one and begin to eat.”
John rocked back on his heels. “I’m not going to eat—”
“Then I’m not going to save your friend. Choose!”
John stood like a man condemned and walked to the nearest dead Indian. John didn’t know him. He was not of the Onondowaga tribe. That made what he had to do easier somehow. He squatted next to the dead man and then looked up at Awenhai. “Raw? I don’t know what to do.”
She said something in her singsong language, and one of the wendigos trotted over. The creature shouldered John aside and, using the long talons that served as his fingers, ripped open the brave’s thigh. With a barking yip, he elbowed John in a teasing manner.
Congealing blood seeped into the fresh tear in the dead man’s skin. John choked down his bile.
“Now, eat,” said Awenhai in an imperious tone. “One small bite is all that is required for now. Think of it as a commitment. A promise to my service. Your oath to follow the prescriptions of my service.”
John looked back and forth from the dead brave to his dying friend. Donehogawa’s muscles had started to twitch, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. He didn’t have long before he succumbed to his broken skull.
Steeling himself, John bent over the corpse. He tucked his chin to keep from gagging and lowered his face to the wound. Behind him, the two wendigos made their peculiar chuffing laughter.
The smell of raw human flesh invaded John’s nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes. Dear God! I can’t do this! He opened his mouth, sinking his face lower toward the gaping wound. His lips brushed the dead flesh, and he recoiled, rocking away from the body.
More laughter from the wendigos echoed through the air, but Awenhai looked furious. “Is this how you prove your service to me? Are you not a man of your word? Shall I kill this brave, then?” She leaned toward Donehogawa and grabbed him by the throat.
“No!” shouted John. He leaned back toward the wound, closing his eyes, refusing to breathe the scent into his nose. He ducked his head and sank his teeth into the dead Indian’s exposed thigh muscle.
The taste was horrible. Raw meat was bad enough, but knowing it was raw human meat only added to John’s revulsion. He bit down hard and twisted his head. A small chunk of flesh came away in his mouth. He leaned back, face dripping blood and gore. His body fighting him, he choked and gagged on the foul meat.
Awenhai nodded. “Chew or swallow it whole. Holding it in your mouth does not complete the task at hand.” Her eyes were stern, without sympathy.
He tried to chew, but his throat constricted at the texture. He forced himself to swallow the chunk of flesh whole, shuddering as it went down. Behind him, the wendigos howled in triumph.
She smiled and crooned, “Good. You are one of us, now.” She knelt beside Donehogawa and looked into his eyes. “Ah,” she murmured. “Haylsu ok stirk.”
Donehogawa straightened. The fluid from his nose and ears trickled to a stop. His pupils normalized, and his eyes cleared. “What…John, what have you done?”
“No other choice, my friend,” said John. “Tell my brothers.”
Donehogawa bowed his head, sorrow evident in every line of his posture.
“One more thing,” John said to Awenhai.
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Servants make no demands.”
“A request, then. My sister-in-law and nephew. Let Donehogawa take them home.”
“You don’t ask after your captain?” Her tone was mocking, sarcastic.
John shrugged. “I care more about my family.”
“Just as well. We ate that pig in the forest. He was arrogant and annoying.”
“My request?” he asked, taking no pleasure in the death of Martin Wiggin.
Awenhai looked at him for a long moment, then said something in her singsong language. One of the wendigos turned and sprinted to the cave. He disappeared inside, and emerged a short while later, leading Mark. “The woman…it is too late for her. But I give your nephew to this brave.” She gestured at Donehogawa. When he didn’t look up at her, she stomped her foot and snapped. The wendigos growled.
The picture of weariness and revulsion, Donehogawa glanced at her and nodded once. “I will see him home.”
“I have done all you asked,” said Awenhai, turning back to John. “I am sending Otentonnia home to manage my affairs there. You will travel with him, and by your blood, you will live a long life in my service.”
John clasped Donehogawa by the shoulder, but the brave didn’t look at him. “Forgive me, my friend. I had to do this vile thing to save you. Remember me,” he murmured.
Donehogawa shook his head. “It would have been better to die, John, than to see you thus reduced. You will be wendigo now.”
With his face cast in grim lines, John walked to Awenhai’s side. “I am a man of my word,” he told her. “You needn’t worry.”
She chuckled. “You will not return to Mithgarthr.”
“To where?”
She smiled and laughed. It was a harsh, rasping laugh. “To here, Master Black. You will not return to this world.”
John felt a crushing despair as he looked back at Mark. He tried to put on a brave face for the boy but wasn’t sure he pulled it off. “Tell my brothers I love them,” he said. “Tell them I had to do this.”
The wendigo who had brought Mark out grabbed John by the wrist and led him deep into the cave. When they reached the deepest room, the wendigo changed into a tall, blond haired man.
“My true name is Vowli,” he said.
“John Black,” said John.
The naked man smiled and pointed to a pool of water. “We must swim.”
John followed him into the water, fighting regret, fighting despair. They swam through a short, underwater tunnel that was filled with a wavering silver light.
When John surfaced, some invisible force was pulling at the core of his being. An oval of quicksilver hovered six inches above the floor of the chamber. “What is this place?” he asked.
Vowli looked at him and grinned. “This is the Regnpokaprooin. The Rainbow Bridge.” He grabbed John by the wrist and pulled him up out of the water. Then, cracking John’s arm like a whip, Vowli sent John spinning into the silver oval. John took his last breath on Earth, fell into the oval, and disappeared.
Wendigo
Table of Contents
Cover Page
TITLE PAGE
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Rooms of Ruin
Blood of the Isir
Book Two
Erik Henry Vick
Rooms of ruin dedication
In memory of Henry “Hank” M. Vick, teller of hilarious tales, man of a thousand voices, grandfather extraordinaire.
All is silent in the halls of the dead. All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead, B
ehold the stairways which stand in darkness; behold the rooms of ruin. These are the halls of the dead where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.
―Stephen King
One
Then I was fertilized and grew wise;
From a word to a word I was led to a word,
From a work to a work I was led to a work.
—Vafþrúðnismál. (The Poetic Edda)
She sat on her sunbaked, impromptu throne like the queen she was, pale golden locks stirring in the hot wind blowing from the depths of Kleymtlant’s deserts. Her gray eyes sought his, and when their gazes met, Luka Oolfhyethidn’s stomach twittered. When she smiled, he thought he might melt.
“What news, my Champion?” Hel asked.
“My Queen, the rebels left Trankastrantir on horseback, but they rode east, not south.”
One of her eyebrows quirked. “By sea then?”
Luka nodded once. “They may avoid our trap despite their complete ignorance of its existence.”
“Oh come, Luka,” she said. “Do you think me so easy to thwart?” She cocked her head to the side, a small smile playing on her lips. “Your part of the plan is in readiness?”
“Of course, my Queen. I spoke with him. He knows his role.”
“Superb. I heard from one of Vowli’s oolfa this morning. His part of the plan is in place, ready, and waiting.”
“And can we trust our agent?”
Her gaze hardened. “Am I so easily fooled?”
“No, my Queen. I meant to wonder at the strength of Vowli’s conditioning methods.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Beyond reproach. But come, enough of this petty jealousy, Luka. We must drive them back to the course we prefer.”
“Yes, my Queen. Shall I—”
“I will handle that part.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“We have a challenge before us. One to which we must rise.”
He arched his eyebrow and scratched his chin. “Tell me, my Queen.”
“We have a game of hnefatafl to play, and you and I stand against many.”
“And which side are we?”
She smiled a lazy, crooked smile. “The attackers, of course.”
He grinned and inclined his head. “I understand, my Queen. We erect barricades to keep them from straying from the path we choose.”
“Indeed, my Champion. Indeed.” She waved her hand toward a pen of human and subhuman thralls the army had gathered from the sparse civilizations of Kleymtlant. “In the meantime, are you hungry? You are much more mischievous on a full stomach.”
Luka let his eyes wander about the pen, and his mouth began to water. “I could eat, my Queen.”
She nodded. “Then choose our prey.” She stood and let the cool, loose robe fall at her feet. “Byarnteer,” she murmured and began to stretch and morph.
An intense pleasure, mingled with lust, swept through Luka. The last time they had hunted together had been on Mithgarthr. He pointed out a thrall. “That one,” he said to one of the pen’s guards. He glanced up at Hel’s new bear-like form and smiled. “Oolfur.” Luka took a deep breath and began his own change into a beast out of nightmare.
Two
The hot sun pounded against the dock and the deck of the ship next to it, but to me, the heat was a godsend. I’d used the last of my “miracle drug,” my methotrexate, months before, and despite the pain-masking cloak Meuhlnir had commissioned for me on our trip to Nitavetlir, and Sif’s best efforts, my joints hurt, and the heat helped. “I wish you had stayed at Veethar and Frikka’s estate,” I said for the fourth or fifth time.
“Hank Jensen, bring that up again, and you’re going to limp the rest of the way to Pilrust,” said Jane. “And not because of your illness.”
“Tell him, Jane,” said Yowrnsaxa. “He’s as stubborn as my husband.”
“Oh, god, not that!” said Meuhlnir with mock horror. “Surely, no man aspires to emulate the Isir that spawned an entire mythos. Not to mention a film franchise!”
Sif turned a baleful glare at Meuhlnir. “Hank, I wish you’d never told him of these things called movers.”
“Movies, Auntie Sniffles,” said Sig.
“Yes, movies. Wasn’t his head big enough?”
Meuhlnir grumbled something under his breath and turned away to gaze out at Stein Tuhn Haf, the great ocean that bordered Suelhaym Eekier to the east.
I took Jane’s hand, suppressing a sigh. “I don’t want either of you getting hurt.” Life on Osgarthr had been pleasant and bucolic since we’d rescued Jane and Sig from Luka and Hel. It was a grand place, full of interesting people, but being trapped there rankled, and since my family’s rescue resulted in the closure of the preer, we had to go to the Herperty af Roostum—to the so-called Rooms of Ruin—and get the preer functioning again. If we could.
The Herperty af Roostum were located far to the north, on the northern continent known as Kleymtlant. We needed to go to a place named Pilrust—a long disused citadel of the Geumlu. The journey would be a long one, fraught with dangers we couldn’t predict—and that’s if the Dark Queen and her minions left us alone.
“And still he carries on,” said Yowrnsaxa in an exasperated tone, but with a glint of humor in her eye. “Why can’t men ever see when they're beaten?”
“Might as well ask the sun to set in the east,” said Jane.
Meuhlnir glanced over his shoulder. “That one wasn’t that bad, Jane. You’re getting the hang of it.”
“Awesome. I’m happy I graduated to ‘not that bad,’” said Jane in a droll tone.
“Don’t listen to him, dear,” said Frikka. “That one has always been slow to admit defeat.”
The ship looked like a logical evolution of a Viking longship from Mithgarthr—long and narrow, but with three masts, multiple decks, and a hold for the horses. The captain and crew had taken our coin without comment, despite the looks they’d given each other when Meuhlnir had told them the party’s ultimate destination.
“Defeat? Me? I haven’t even begun.”
“You’ve finished. Everyone knows this but you,” grumbled Sif.
“Woman, one day your mouth will get you into trouble that your pitiful shield—”
“Oh, here it comes,” said Mothi. “Good, I haven’t seen my father thoroughly thrashed in a flyting for months. Go on, Father.” Beside him, Sig snickered.
“I can see I will get no rest on this trip,” said Meuhlnir.
“Keep flapping those lips, dear one, and you’ll be whining and whinging about the amount of rest you get,” said Yowrnsaxa.
Meuhlnir looked first at Yowrnsaxa, and then at Sif. With a long-suffering sigh, he closed his mouth and boarded the ship. “We’re losing the tide!” he called.
“Now he thinks he’s the captain,” murmured Mothi. “The man has a difficult time navigating out of his own bedroom in the morning.”
“I heard that,” said Meuhlnir. “You’re not so old I can’t ground you.”
Mothi rolled his eyes but turned his head, so his expression was only visible to Sig. “Yes, Father,” he said.
“And don’t think I don’t know you’re over there rolling your eyes, showing off for your young cousin.”
The stevedores finished loading the last of the party’s luggage and the provisions for the voyage, and the captain paid them in Meuhlnir’s silver coins. “Let’s get going,” he said. “Before we lose the tide.”
Althyof scowled as he stepped off the gangplank and onto the deck. He walked as if the deck beneath him might break with each step.
“The ship is sound, sir,” said the captain, coming up the gangplank behind him.
“Sound? Sound? It’s made of wood.”
The captain shook his head and strode back to the bridge of the ship. Meuhlnir turned and walked toward the captain.
“Oh, for Isi’s sake, Meuhlnir. Leave the man be so we can get underway!” snapped Yowrnsaxa.
“I think I’ll stand with the captain
for the beginning of our voyage.”
Sif tapped her foot and crossed her arms. “I think you’ll stay out of the man’s way before I clout—”
“Father, come stand next to Sig and me. Tell us a story to pass the time,” said Mothi.
Meuhlnir glowered at his wives but came to stand in the bow next to Sig. “You see, Sig? Mothi’s got the right of it. It’s better to stay single than to—”
“Single, you say?” chuckled Sif. “We can arrange that.”
“You never learn, do you, old man?” asked Frikka, trying to hide a grin.
“One day, I will beat them—”
“At flyting? It’s not likely,” said Veethar.
“Now you speak? You don’t say a word all the way from Trankastrantir to the coast, you don’t say a word while we arrange for transport, not a word over a meal, nothing while the roustabouts load our luggage, and the words you choose to break your verbal fast are those?”
Veethar looked Meuhlnir in the eye. “Everyone knows this, Meuhlnir. Everyone.”
Meuhlnir harrumphed. “Well, I hadn’t finished. Perhaps I meant to say, ‘with a stick’ or ‘at dice’ or ‘in wrestling.’ Did you consider any of those, O God of Silence?”
“None of those, either,” said Veethar quietly. “Everyone knows this.” Veethar glanced at Frikka as she came to stand by his side. She smiled at him and put her arm through his.
Meuhlnir shook his head. “Is no one on my side?”
“Might as well ask grass to grow downward into the dirt,” I said.
Meuhlnir’s cheeks quivered, and he tried to keep the smile off his lips, but he couldn’t. He glanced at Frikka. “You see? That is true mastery of the craft, and here I am admitting Hank has become a master.”
“Anything to turn attention away from how badly your wives trounced you,” said Veethar with the slight stretching of his lips that served him as a broad smile.
“You only say that because you think Yowrnsaxa will give you extra helpings from the cook pot.”
“And he’s right,” said Yowrnsaxa.
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