Blood of the Isir Omnibus

by Erik Henry Vick

  “Skowvithr, take Sig east to the foot of the mountains. We will meet you there.”

  “No, Dad! I can—‍”

  “No, you can’t!” snapped Jane. “Do as your father says.”

  “Mom, I—‍” He squawked as Skowvithr jerked Lyettfeti’s reins and galloped hard toward the east. Sig grabbed the front of his saddle and held on.

  Veethar was halfway down the dune when the beast showed itself again. It was a lot closer than I’d have thought possible—a hundred and fifty yards out, or less. “Here I am!” shouted Veethar as he kicked his horse hard in the flanks. The horse screamed and bolted down the face of the dune at an angle.

  When the beast dipped down between dunes, I led the others over the dune. “You yell when it's chasing you, Veethar!”

  We heard it as it drew near. It sounded like an old steam engine, punctuated by the sound of its clawed feet digging into the sound. The beast charged south, following Veethar’s path.

  “It’s chasing!”

  “Okay,” I said to the others. “We wait one minute, then we go after it. All of us stick together—no heroics, Mothi. If you don’t have a ranged weapon, use the power at your disposal. Failing that, stay with us.” I glared at each one in turn, stopping with Jane. “Understand?” They nodded or chorused assent. “Get ready… Go!”

  We raced over the top of the dune and ran along its peak. I drew Kunknir and snapped off two shots, aiming for the beast’s lump of a torso. As the rounds hit, the beast yowled and twitched, but if it slowed, I couldn’t discern the change. If we didn’t slow it down, it would catch Veethar before we could catch up to it.

  “Althyof!” I yelled over the wind of my passage. “Speed!”

  Jane stood in her stirrups and flung the golden spear using every muscle in her body by the look of it. The spear crackled and seemed to liquify in midair, changing into a lightning bolt of pure gold. It rushed after the monster chasing Veethar, crackling like ball lightning. “Cool,” Jane muttered, sitting back in her saddle. The golden lightning bolt slammed into thing’s back, and for a moment the beast’s muscles bunched in a tetanic contraction. The lightning disappeared, and the spear bounced from its back, leaving the creature unharmed.

  Althyof began a trowba and Slaypnir shuddered beneath me. A mighty shiver ran from the tip of his nose down his neck, across his withers and his back. He snorted and picked up speed.

  I fired Kunknir again, relying on its enchantments to hit the beast rather than Veethar. I couldn’t risk using Krati until we were closer, or I could get a safe angle. The sound of the gunshots rolled across the desert plain and bounced back in echo. “Remember to call it back!” I shouted.

  “Aftur!” Jane said, and the spear zipped back to her hand.

  “Ehlteenk!” shouted Meuhlnir and lightning crackled from the sky, slamming the beast between its shoulders. The beast’s muscles bunched again, and its legs skidded across the sand. It was long enough to send the beast cartwheeling ass over teakettle.

  I snapped another round at its underside, which had less armor than the top side, and the thing howled—in pain, I thought, rather than anger. Moving with the apoplectic, overweening quickness of an insect, it flipped over and stood, alternating its stare between Veethar and the rest of us. It took a step toward us, then another toward Veethar.

  I raised Kunknir and waited. When it looked our way again, I fired, aiming at the thing’s head. The round slammed into it, and it shrieked with rage, sprinting toward us.

  “On us now!” I shouted. “Scatter.”

  We split apart, giving our horses their heads. The thing barreled at me, tossing sand in the air as it accelerated at a ridiculous rate. “Let it pass, and when it has, follow!” I shouted, hoping anyone could hear me over the wind, the beast’s caterwauling, and the horses’ hooves.

  The thing was gaining on me fast, head lowered, feet churning the sand. “If you have any ideas, Slaypnir, now would be a good time.” He snorted and juked to the left, running two steps up the side of a dune before wheeling around and cutting toward the other side. He sprang toward the crown of the opposite dune, and I glanced back, expecting to see the thing right behind us.

  I should have trusted Slaypnir. The weird insect or animal chasing me had fallen back quite a bit. Maybe its speed was akin to that of an alligator—straight line only. “Good boy,” I muttered.

  The others fell in behind the beast, and lightning arced down from the sky, this time accompanied by a bolt of fire thrown by Mothi, and the golden lighting of Jane’s spear. Althyof’s mouth was moving in a triblinkr.

  I whipped Kunknir around and shot the beast in the face. Its blood was black and thick, like molasses, and as it shook its head, the gunk flew away through the hot air in thick, sludgy clumps. Bolts of lightning, balls of fire, and something that looked like arrows made of light rained down on the creature from the rear. It shook its spiked head again and glared at me with seething hatred.

  Slaypnir danced side to side, and the thing tried to follow our movement with its eyes. It staggered as if dizzy, and that gave me an idea. Where’s Althyof when I need him? What I had in mind would work best as a trowba, but I had no idea how to pull that off on horseback. I holstered Kunknir and closed my eyes. Maybe I could cheat a little, combine saytr and stayba runana—the string magic of the Isir and the casting of runes.

  Althyof said Hel was doing something resembling runic magic, so I knew it could be done. I concentrated on the runes I would need and composed the three lines I would say in the Gamla Toonkumowl.

  These are my words. “Thehta eru orth meen!” I shouted. I pictured the rune Thurisaz in my mind and concentrated on flinging it out into the world the way Althyof had taught me. The rune meant danger or suffering, and I flung it at the beast. Power crackled in the air surrounding me and swept over the beast like a breaker crashing over rocks. The beast’s eyes locked on mine and it slowed, almost to a walk.

  Althyof was screaming something, but I didn’t have time to listen to him—I needed to finish this before the beast could marshal its will and break free.

  Perceive these runes. “Skinya thessar roonur!” I yelled while casting the Sowilo rune into the world. The rune could mean solace, and I flung it like a promise.

  Stop and rest, give me peace. “Iya tyefthu myer frith!” I cast the rune Eihwaz at the beast, building strength into the kaltrar.

  To disobey me is to die. “Ath oekleethnast myer er ath tayia!” The vitality rune Ansuz floated in my mind, almost without me having to call it up. I followed it by casting the chaos and destruction rune Hagalaz—the combined meaning of the two runes: the destruction of life—death, in other words. A cutting, bone-chilling wind swept over me and blew into the face of the beast.

  You will…not… My mental voice stuttered to a stop, my mind cavernous, empty. You… You will not, um, attack us. “Thoo munt echki…” I tried to force the picture of Thurisaz into my mind, and while I did that, I lost the stream of words. “Thoo munt echki rowthast ow ochk…ochk…” Panic sank into my guts. I couldn’t get the words out. I knew what I needed to say to complete the line: ochkur—I could think it as much as I wanted to, but I couldn’t get the words past my teeth. Something’s wrong! screamed a tiny voice far off in my mind.

  “Ochk…ochk…” I yelled. The air thrummed with power, and my vision wavered with the crackling, soul-draining power of it. Unbidden, Althyof’s words from my first day of runeskowld training swam into my mind. When you incant as a runeskowld, if you fail, there is a backlash of energies. It may strike you; it may strike those around you, he had said.

  Fear locked its maniacal fingers around my neck, adding to the obstructions already there. My tongue spasmed in my mouth and I gagged on the last word of my impromptu kaltrar. Beneath me, Slaypnir snorted, dancing back and forth as if he wanted to bolt, to get away…from me. I tried to pat his neck, to let him know I was still his friend, but the muscles in my arms locked tight, pain singing through me.

  The
power of the runes snapped back at me, backfiring, flinging me from Slaypnir’s saddle and embedding me three inches into the sand. The beast yowled, and I heard—or perhaps felt—the thrumming of its clawed feet on the sand, drawing ever closer. Slaypnir charged away—bolting away from the idiot who’d caused something analogous to an explosion on his back. I tried to roll out of its way, but after the explosion of pain, my muscles refused to obey.

  Slaypnir screamed and charged at the spiked beast, hooves slashing, eyes rolling. The beast backed off a step, then two, a low mewling cry rumbling in its chest. Its tail twitched, and in a blur, it spun and swept the sharp, axe-like protrusions on its tail toward Slaypnir at knee level. Slaypnir reared on his hind legs and jumped to the side—something I’d seen dogs do, but never a horse. The beast hissed and lunged toward me.

  “No!” shouted Jane—exactly as she had back on the ship when she killed the sea dragon by force of will, but the beast didn’t drop dead, and she didn’t collapse. Instead, it stopped and turned toward her, movements laggard and logy. Jane pointed at the beast, and it staggered, looking around in confusion.

  “Yes, more of that, Jane!” Veethar shouted.

  The beast stumbled in a circle, peering at us, and making a high-pitched growling noise. Althyof raced to my side, cursing my stupidity as he came, his cadmium red cartoon daggers crackling and stretching. “You fool,” he hissed as he dropped to his knees next to me, shoving his daggers into their sheaths.

  “Can we get away from the thing when it’s like this?” asked Frikka.

  “We can try,” said Veethar.

  “Can you run, idiot?” Althyof asked me, pulling me up.

  “I think so.”

  “Then do it!” He shoved me toward his horse and ripped his daggers out, the stretchy cartoon blades leaping and flashing.

  “Slaypnir—‍”

  “Leave him to me!” shouted Veethar.

  I ran toward Althyof’s mount, the Tverkr behind me, singing a trowba of mending and dancing as fast as I could sprint. I grabbed the reins of his mount as we ran by it.

  We gathered around Jane, sitting as still as a pillar of salt in her saddle, while the beast shook its head and peered around, baffled by the movement. The beast lurched a few steps toward us and spun in a panicky circle. The strain of it twisted Jane’s features. We knew the power the ring had granted her didn’t come for free, but we didn’t know how much keeping the beast confused would cost her.

  We backed down the far side of the dune. Slaypnir danced at the bottom of the ravine, neighing, and stomping his hooves.

  Althyof’s trowba shifted away from the song of mending he’d used to get me over the blast, slowly changing key and rhythm. I could almost see the runes he cast into the air, and the meaning of the new kaltrar became clear. He was reinforcing the confusion Jane stitched into the beast’s mind and lending her his strength.

  I slid and stumbled down the dune to where Slaypnir stood pawing the ground and climbed up into his saddle, sparing a moment to pat his magnificent neck. “Sorry, buddy,” I said, and he nickered. The rest of the party, except for Althyof and Jane, joined me in the valley between the two dunes. “How will Althyof get on his horse?” I muttered, and as soon as I said it, his trowba became a triblinkr, and he jumped into his saddle without disrupting the rhythm of the chant. Matching Jane’s slow descent step for step, Althyof glared at me as he chanted. After what I’d experienced, envy roiled through me at the apparent ease with which he could do forty-nine things at once.

  “Will it hold?” I called. On the other side of the dune, the beast yowled like a mountain lion in heat.

  Still chanting, Althyof pointed to the east.

  I took Jane’s reins, and she spun in her saddle to stare behind us, forehead wrinkled with strain, lips quivering with the effort of confusing the beast. She swayed with the force of it, the drain on her system. The thing was following us; I could hear its distinctive eight-legged gait on the dune behind us.

  “How can we get this damn thing to stop following us?” I asked.

  “It will leave when the ground gets rocky enough,” said Farmathr in a lazy drawl.

  “You know this, or you think this?” asked Meuhlnir with an edge in his voice.

  Farmathr rode on in silence, a small smile curving his lips.

  We rode hard, pushing the horses on the loose footing of the queer-looking desert sand. The farther east we rode, the smaller the dunes, and soon I could see the spiny beast following us with an over-the-shoulder glance.

  The beast chased us in a peculiar, repeating series of actions. It would run for a hundred yards or so and stop to look around as if lost. The creature would shake its head and, in a burst of ridiculous acceleration, beeline for us again.

  As the ground flattened and hardened, we increased our pace, and the beast chasing us mewled like a kitten. The interval between looking around and accelerating on our back trail grew longer and longer, and as Slaypnir’s hooves scuffed over the scree, the beast stopped and lifted its snout in the air as if sniffing the wind of our passage. It took another step toward us but then backed away in mincing steps. It made one more mewling cry before turning back to the desert and speeding away, chased by a plume of dust.

  “You see?” asked Farmathr.

  Jane sagged in her saddle, almost falling. Her eyes rolled in their sockets, and her mouth hung slack. I stepped Slaypnir close and gripped her shoulder. “Help me!” Yowtgayrr was off his horse in half a heartbeat and standing on the other side of her horse. He grasped her shoulder and thigh and nodded at me. When I let her go, Yowtgayrr slid her gently to the ground.

  Sif squatted next to Jane and examined her with a critical eye. “Keeping the beast confused drained her almost as much as the battle with the sea dragon,” she said. “Without Althyof’s help, I doubt we would have made it.”

  “But she’s okay?”

  “As with the sea dragon,” Sif said with a nod. “It’s only exhaustion.”

  Jane stirred, and her eyelids fluttered. Sif forced a foul-smelling brew to her lips, and as the amber liquid splashed into her mouth, her eyes opened wide.

  “Swallow, woman,” said Sif.

  Jane took great gulps of the draught, and her eyes erupted with tears. She blinked furiously but kept right on drinking. When Sif pulled the jar away from her lips, Jane almost looked ready to go again.

  “Can you ride?” I asked her.

  She nodded and staggered to her feet, looking more than a little drunk. Yowtgayrr rested his hand on her elbow and guided her toward her mount. He stayed by her side until she sat slumped in the saddle, still blinking as if she had hot sauce in her eyes.

  Past the scree, the ground turned hard and sloped upward toward the mountains. Skowvithr and Sig sat on their horses five hundred yards past the scree, amidst small boulders of igneous rocks in shades of dark gray. “Is it gone?” Sig called. “For good, I mean?”

  “Looks that way, kiddo. Thanks to Mommy and Althyof.”

  “Cool!”

  The sun rested for a moment on the western horizon, as if waving goodbye, and began to set. The sloped ground wasn’t perfect for camping, never mind the small stones and larger boulders. “Is there a flat area to camp somewhere nearby?” I asked, looking at Farmathr.

  He shrugged and walked his horse toward the east.

  “Great guide he’s turned out to be,” grunted Mothi.

  “How far to this shortcut of yours?” asked Meuhlnir.

  Farmathr turned his horse to the side and glared back at us. “Half a day, maybe more, maybe less. It’s hard to say without knowing at which step my advice will be ignored.”

  “Stow the attitude,” I said. “Get moving.”

  He stared at me for a moment before wheeling his horse around without a word and walked up-slope.

  “Tell us about the back way.”

  “It’s marvelous,” said Farmathr without turning. “There are tunnels, but not manufactured. They are smooth-walled and cur
ve through the mountain with a certain grace. They connect this side of the mountains to a cave system that leads to Pilrust.”

  “Not dug by men, you say?” asked Meuhlnir.

  “Correct.”

  “What else tunnels through rock?”

  “Magma,” chirped Sig. “They’re called lava tubes.”

  “Is that so?” asked Farmathr in tones that made it clear he didn’t think much of Sig giving his opinion of anything.

  “Yes, it is. I learned about it in school.”

  “How far to these tubes?” asked Mothi, with a glance at the darkening sky.

  “Are you tired, Isir?” asked Farmathr. “After all that sleep?”

  “No, but who knows what other beasts lurk in this crazy place.”

  “Who, indeed,” said Farmathr with an unkind laugh.

  “All I know is that if someone knows and doesn’t share his knowledge beforehand, I may grow to dislike him,” said Mothi in a gruff voice.

  “You mean you don’t already?” murmured Meuhlnir.

  We reached the entrance to Farmathr’s back way as the larger of Osgarthr’s two moons reached its zenith. The air was crisp and dry, and warm air gusted from the lava tube’s entrance, bearing a trace scent of sulfur. The area in front of the entrance was wide and flat—a perfect place to camp—and everyone was ready for a break from the saddle.

  Mothi gathered firewood from the slopes around the entrance and built a large, roaring fire. Yowrnsaxa’s grin split her face as she got out her cook pot and ingredients. Farmathr watched her preparations with a sardonic smile for a moment before he turned and walked off into the gathering darkness.

  “Guess he’s not eating,” murmured Mothi. “Again… Oh, well, I’ll have his share.” Mothi sat on a boulder and beamed a smile at Yowrnsaxa.

  “Wrestle you for it,” said Sig.

  “Young man, there’s no way you could win—‍” Sig jumped on him from behind, wrapping his legs around Mothi’s waist and his arms around the big man’s neck. Mothi glanced at me with a crooked grin and fell to the side of the boulder in such a way that Sig wouldn’t hit the ground. “Ack!” he said. “I’ve been ambushed!” Fretyi and Keri yipped and bounced around the two, as if they wanted to join in but couldn’t decide whose feet needed attacking the most.