Blood of the Isir Omnibus

by Erik Henry Vick

  They rode for half a day and reached the valley that held the inn by midafternoon and sat on a bluff looking down at the inn. It was nice enough, as inns went, and the valley gave every appearance of normality. Sif turned to Frikka, and said, “Well, what do you think?”

  “What do I think?”

  Sif frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know what I mean.”

  Frikka smiled, but she didn’t feel like smiling. She felt as she always felt when someone pressed her for an augury—uncomfortable and a little sick to her stomach. “I haven’t seen this,” she muttered.

  “Well, then, we are on our own,” said Sif. “Who goes?”

  Meuhlnir looked at Veethar, Frikka, Yowrnsaxa, and turned his gaze back to Sif. “I’ve already said I prefer to go alone, but—‍” He held up a hand to forestall Yowrnsaxa’s objections. “But, I bow to my wife’s wishes. I say we five go.”

  Sif nodded. “How do we call the troop if we need them?”

  Meuhlnir grinned, but his expression was cold, hard. “If they see lightning, they should come on the run.”

  Sif conveyed orders to the leaders of the reserve forces and led the party of five down into the valley. What had looked like normalcy from the bluff, now looked like an utter lack of life—no one worked the fields, no travelers walked the roads, nothing. They approached the inn with only the sound of their footsteps breaking the silence. Sif pulled up in front of the inn, eyeing it with suspicion. “Where is everyone?” she hissed.

  The door banged open, and thralls dressed for war poured out of the inn.

  “It’s a trap,” snapped Sif. “Run!”

  They wheeled their horses, but oolfa stood behind them, drooling bloody pus, fur bristling. Thralls kept pouring from the inn, surrounding the party.

  “Finally,” said Suel in silky tones. “What’s that adage? Cut the head off the snake?” An oolfur growled and snapped its teeth, eyes blazing at Meuhlnir. “I know, dear one,” Suel said. “You can have him as soon as I’m done.”

  Suel spoke from hiding, but Frikka closed her eyes and saw where she stood. Cut the head off the snake? She could end it; she could end the terror, the misery, the war. All she had to do was say one word in the Gamla Toonkumowl. Just one small word.

  Frikka stared at the spot in the woods where Queen Suel hid. Say it! Say “tayia!” she raged at herself. She wanted to say it, she wanted the queen dead, and that one word, that one command in the Gamla Toonkumowl would end the queen’s life as surely as a dagger between the ribs. She opened her dry mouth, and drew breath, focusing her mind on Suel, on her essence.

  “Yes,” hissed Meuhlnir. “Come, my brother, we have much to…talk about.” The oolfur snarled and took a step.

  “No!” said Suel. “Not yet.”

  Say it! Frikka screamed in her mind. Do it! She deserves no quarter, no mercy! Her lungs were full, the word was on her tongue, ready for breath to give it life, and still, she hesitated.

  “I wanted to thank you,” said Suel. “To thank you for coming, for giving yourselves to me. Did you think I would entertain a palaver with a bunch of traitorous fools?”

  Why can’t you say it? This wasn’t Suel—not the Suel she’d grown up with, not the pleasant, fair-minded queen she’d respected. This woman was an abomination, a mistake. She deserves nothing but death for what she’s done! Still, the breath remained trapped in her lungs.

  “Sif, my childhood playmate, my friend!” Suel spat the words into the air as though they were venom aimed at Sif’s eyes. “I never expected you would betray me.”

  “You betrayed me, Suel, along with the memory of your father.”

  “Ha! Another fool. Your barbs have no point, Trohtninkar Tama.” Suel stomped her foot. “Even the sound of your former title makes me angry.”

  End this! End it now! Frikka closed her eyes, blotting out the scene, the war, the queen. One word. One little word.

  “Enough of this! Ehlteenk!” screamed Meuhlnir and lightning arced from the sky to the sound of crashing thunder.

  Even through her closed eyelids, Frikka saw the brilliant blue bolt descend into the knot of thralls surrounding them. An oolfur snarled, another howled. Horses whinnied and jostled around her. Weapons rang as they were unsheathed. DO IT! she screamed in her mind.

  “Kill them all!” snarled Suel.

  Do it now! Say the word! Say it! But she couldn’t bring herself to utter the word that would drain the life from her one-time friend and queen. She couldn’t kill in cold blood.

  “Frikka!” shouted Veethar.

  Her eyes snapped open and pandemonium erupted around her. Thralls pressed forward with spears and shields, and the oolfa snarled and snapped behind them, working themselves up to charge. Meuhlnir stood in his stirrups, pointing his hammer at one of the oolfur—his brother, Luka, no doubt. Sif and Yowrnsaxa had their shields on their arms already, and their weapons in their other hands. Veethar sat on his horse at her side, his expression serene, but his eyes contained a little wildness, a little fear, a little excitement. As she watched, his lips moved, but whatever he said was too low for her to hear. His eyes changed from pale blue to blazing yellow, and he pointed at the forest.

  Green growth exploded through the underbrush, trees sprouting and shooting skyward. The underbrush thickened, vines reaching and grasping at the queen’s forces hiding in the woods. Shrieks came from the deep woods, and Veethar’s face wrinkled in an ugly smile.

  Frikka looked for Suel, but she was no longer hiding in the bushes—she’d stepped out into plain view. If Veethar can do his part… She raised her hand and pointed at Suel. She opened her mouth to speak the word, to kill her friend.

  Suel’s eyes snapped to hers and blazed like twin suns. “No!” shouted Suel. “Thun!”

  Frikka let the word loose, breathing life to it, caressing it with her tongue, a silly half-grin on her face. Nothing happened. No sound issued from her throat, no word of power fell from her tongue. Thun…silence.

  She stared at Suel, fury burning in her heart, while lightning bolts danced around her. Horses screamed and lashed out with metal-clad hooves. Beside her, Veethar whispered to himself, pointing here and there, smiling as nature took vengeance on their attackers.

  Suel still stared at Frikka, anger and hatred burning in her eyes. She lifted her hand and pointed at Frikka. “Kvul!”

  Frikka’s nervous system lit up like she’d touched the sun. Agony ripped through her body in wave after wave of burning, tearing, breaking, smashing agony. She screamed, and her muscles convulsed all at once, throwing her to the ground at the horses’ feet.

  “No!” shouted Veethar. He leapt from his horse, drawing his sword and standing over her as she writhed in the dirt.

  A sound like the pounding surf rang in her ears, and she thought it was her own pulse. She tried to open her eyes, to see what was happening around her, to avoid being trampled by the horses at least, but the effort was too much amidst all the misery that had become her entire existence.

  “Sif!” shouted Veethar.

  “Frikka! Yowrnsaxa, get these horses away!” yelled Sif.

  Frikka wanted to tell Sif to focus on the battle, to stop worrying about her, but then another billow of torment crashed over her, and the world outside her misery disappeared.

  Six

  “I didn’t want her to worry about me. I wanted her to focus on the battle. I tried to tell her that, but another flood of anguish overcame me, and everything went black for a while.”

  “But what she didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that the Dark Queen’s forces were already in flight. Between Meuhlnir’s wanton use of lightning, and Veethar’s nature-magic, the enemy turned and ran,” said Sif.

  “Not to mention the six hundred fighters pounding down from the hills,” said Meuhlnir.

  “Yes, there was that, too.”

  “The battle?” I asked.

  Meuhlnir shrugged, pursing his lips. “Not much of a battle, to be honest. The oolfa took one look at
the forest going crazy at their backs and ran for it. The Black Queen was never a stupid woman, and she had a gift for sensing the tide of battle turning. I didn’t see how she got away.”

  “She took the form of a bear and charged down the road, maiming her own troops if they got in her way,” said Yowrnsaxa in a bland tone.

  I glanced at Jane, who was staring at the flames licking the cook pot. Her lips pursed and relaxed, pursed and relaxed, but the rest of her face bore no expression. “Penny, Supergirl,” I whispered.

  She started, then flashed a quick smile at me. “That was quite a story, Frikka. Thanks for telling me.”

  Frikka stared into the fire. “Who knows? Maybe I could not have killed her had I tried.” Frikka glanced at Jane and patted her hand. “I should have killed her when I first saw her. Her forces would have fallen apart as each ambitious leader claimed the throne. You see?”

  “Yes,” said Jane.

  “I might have saved so many lives. I could have saved your family from this ordeal.”

  “Yes,” said Jane. “Though as hard as it was in the beginning, things…”

  Frikka chuckled. “Not everything has been bad? You say this even after meeting Meuhlnir?”

  “I heard that,” said the lightning god.

  “I intended you to.”

  Jane smiled. “Yes, good things have come out of our ordeal,” she said, looking at Mothi and Sig joking and play-fighting at the edge of the fire’s light. She took my hand and squeezed. “And this idiot here finally has a doctor who seems to know what she’s doing.”

  Sif smiled and bowed her head once.

  “But even so,” said Frikka.

  “Yes,” said Jane for the third time. She looked at Frikka, and something seemed to pass between them. “There’s no point feeling guilty, is there?”

  “None,” said Frikka. “The Sisters wove your fate eons ago. You can only do your best.”

  Jane smiled and squeezed my hand. “I tell this lunkhead that all the time, but he’s got this thing about making everything perfect.”

  Frikka glanced at me. “Men,” she said with a smile, and the other women repeated the word in the same tone.

  Meuhlnir glanced at me across the fire and shook his head. “There will be no living with them, you know. You kill the next dragon, please.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Let’s avoid the next dragon and call it a win.”

  “Hmmm,” said Sif. “You see, dear? Not all men are idiots.”

  “Who knew?” asked Frikka, her eyes on Veethar’s pale blue ones across the fire.

  “I did,” said Jane. She punched me in the arm. “Because my friend married one of the non-idiots. I bet he never shot at her!”

  “A guy makes one mistake…” I said, doing my best mournful voice.

  “Exactly!” said Meuhlnir. “One mistake, and—‍”

  “Shut it,” said Sif without looking at him. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help smiling.

  “Might as well ask sand to turn back into rock, as ask a woman to let things lie,” Meuhlnir muttered.

  “Heard that,” said Yowrnsaxa. “What are you eating for dinner, dear?”

  Meuhlnir shook his head. “I should know better than to say anything.”

  “You really should, by this point,” said Veethar. “Everyone knows this.”

  “Knows what?” said Althyof, walking back into the camp.

  “It’s nothing,” said Meuhlnir.

  “Tverkar jokes? Again?”

  Meuhlnir held up his hands, palms out.

  Althyof glared at everyone sitting around the fire. “I hope no one laughed…”

  “Really, Althyof, there were no—‍” Jane began.

  “Got you,” he said and roared laughter at the night sky. When he’d laughed himself out, Althyof slumped onto one of the logs circling the fire. “Okay, so guess what I just did.”

  “Um, I think you tried to pull a joke, but I’m not entirely sure,” said Meuhlnir in a droll tone.

  “Not that,” said Althyof, with a wave. “While I was away.”

  “We don’t discuss such things in mixed company,” said Veethar, his face grim.

  “What? No, I…that is, I—‍”

  “Got you,” said Veethar, and, this time, everyone laughed.

  Yowrnsaxa doled out portions of another delicious, if improbable, trail stew, which was better than the fare I’d eaten in many fancy restaurants back in Mithgarthr.

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” I said, looking at Althyof.

  “Yes?”

  “Why did Jane pass out? The ring—”

  “Ah, that. The ring allows her certain abilities, but at a price, as with anything.”

  “A price?” I asked, my voice grave.

  “Oh, nothing to be concerned about. For the enchantment to work as it does, it needed to be bound to something. Given the nature of the work, I bound the power of the enchantment to her will—to her spirit, or whatever you Isir call it.”

  “Fettle,” said Sif.

  “Wait a minute—”

  “No, hold on,” Althyof said, pointing at me with his spoon. “There is no permanent damage done. Her spirit will replenish itself over time, as anyone’s does. There is no danger.”

  “Well, she passed out and almost drowned,” muttered Yowtgayrr.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “So, there are limits to what she can do. If killing something will knock her out for a day and a half, what about—”

  “The time, the impact of the deed depends on the power of the creature. How much of its own will it raises in its own defense.”

  Jane nodded. “The more powerful the…will, the more it takes out of me.”

  “Yes,” said the Tverkr around a mouthful of stew. “Meuhlnir, here, you—”

  “No. No jokes,” said Jane.

  Althyof bowed his head. “Ah, yes. No jokes,” he said.

  “What about the confusion? The healing? The wings?”

  He waved his spoon. “No, only the offensive abilities. Well, yes to the confusion. It will drain you, but not to the extent of killing your opponent.”

  “And does the cost scale?” Jane demanded.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “If killing one sea dragon knocked me out for a day and a half, would killing ten million ants do the same?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good—”

  “Fine. If I confuse one man and it takes one unit of energy from my…from my spirit, would confusing ten men take ten units?”

  Althyof nodded. “I would think so, yes, but it’s complicated by the fact that not all men are equal. Some are weak, some strong.” He shrugged. “You will feel the drain. With the dragon, it was—”

  “Too quick,” she said.

  “Yes. Too quick. In the future, you will have to assess the creature you wish to kill, to judge the impact to your will.”

  Jane nodded and looked out into the darkness surrounding the camp. We went on eating, talking about lighter things, and after everyone finished stuffing themselves, between the full bellies and the roaring fire, eyelids drooped, and conversations petered out. While Jane helped Yowrnsaxa clean up, I rolled into the large bedroll Jane and I shared, groaning under my breath as my creaky joints settled on the hard ground. I had meant to wait for Jane, to warm her side of the bedroll, and to hold her until she fell asleep, but the events of the day snuck up on me, and I slept.

  When I woke, the fire had burned down to coals, and it was still dark—still the middle of the night dark. My knees, ankles, and feet burned with a persistent, low-level pain. Jane lay beside me, her breathing deep and relaxed. I lay there, trying to escape the pain by sinking into the warm embrace of sleep, but deep down, I knew it was a lost battle. Once the pain reached the level where it could wake me, it would keep me awake for as long as it wanted, and there was not much I could do about that. I could take a pain med, but since I was one of the lucky few for whom narcotic pain meds p
revented sleep and made me groggy at the same time, that would only guarantee I wouldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. It was a win-win for my Personal Monster™. It made no sense, but then again, where was it written that things must make sense?

  There was a part of me that had grown to hate night. I kept it from Jane—she had enough to worry about—but the act of getting ready for bed, the settling into bed, the silence, the darkness, all of it contributed to my insomnia. There’s an unfortunate side effect of chronic pain—in the absence of other sensory input, pain gets louder—more intense—and much harder to ignore.

  I thought about taking a pain med anyway…maybe I’d fall asleep before the damn thing set my brain to “wake.” There was a part of me that recognized the fallacy inherent in that thought, but another part of me didn’t care. It’s not like I’d fall asleep if I didn’t take the pill. The pain would be there, waving its arms and shouting for the rest of the night. The only hope was a distraction that wouldn’t, in and of itself, keep me awake, but had enough oomph to lower the volume of the pain.

  Yeah, right.

  I rolled up on my side, facing Jane. At times like this, I missed being back home, where books were as close as my phone, and I’d be able to read away the hours until dawn. I had my phone, of course, I’d buried it away in my pack, but with no way to recharge the thing, the battery had gone flat.

  Hell, if we were back home, I could get up and go search for the end of the Internet. Or maybe watch YouTube videos of idiots doing stupid, yet interesting things. Or I could play a game—my hands felt fine for a change. I flipped to my other side and stared into the darkness while my legs sang their litany of pain and discomfort in my ear.

  Reciting the things I couldn’t do wasn’t helping anything. Why did my mind run to things that amped up my stress instead of repressing it? It never failed—when I felt my worst, I worried about all the things I was missing out on, all the things I could no longer do. It was stupid, but I seemed powerless in the face of that brand of self-torture.

  I wondered what Luka was doing at that moment. He’d taken damage in our fight in Piltsfetl, not only from my pistols but from Urlikr’s swords. Even Jane had gotten in a few licks. I didn’t imagine any of the wounds still existed or had even slowed him down that much, but still…