by Cebelius
She spread her middle set. "I take these women."
With her upper right she pointed at him. "I take you."
She waved her upper left dismissively. "I give nothing in return.
Folding all three sets of arms across her body she smiled triumphantly down at him. "Mm. Sounds good to me."
For a fraction of a second, Terry considered launching an assault. Yet as he did so, his foresight showed him Najaha effortlessly parrying his axes with her middle right and upper left swords as she used her lower left and middle right to both melt his face and eviscerate him.
He thought of throwing the axes and could not escape the conclusion that Najaha would catch them ... and very likely throw them back. He couldn't beat her physically. He simply knew it. The one asset he had always been able to count on wasn't even close to enough now. She'd beaten him. She knew it, and she knew he knew it.
Even if he took Halla's gift from Prada, the axes wouldn't grow with him. Najaha would just carve him into chunks.
Her power to seduce ... it all hinges on that.
He felt Isthil touch him lightly as she said, "It's fer the best, Terry. She'll make the lot of us happy, I kin tell."
Prada helped him shrug off the nightmare's compulsion to sleep, and he felt her pressing back into his body as she thought, 'We must abandon this place. We are outmatched here.'
Terry agreed that they were outmatched, but there was no way he would leave his women. No way he would abandon his loves. Instead, he dropped the flaming axes at his feet. Najaha smiled indulgently as she said, "Wise choice. Your familiar. Cast her out."
"No."
Before he even finished the word, Najaha's middle left hand whipped down and had the sword half-drawn. Terry's danger sense didn't kick in, but before he realized her true purpose, the sword flashed and the tiger-man holding Najaha's book for her crumpled to the grass as his head flew free and bounced away.
"Cast. Her. Out. All these, nothing but fodder for me. But to you ... more, I think," she said, a predatory smile playing on her lips.
Focusing to speak in English, Terry said, "Prada, I love you. I have an idea, but I may need most of your power. Are you willing?"
She examined his thoughts and he felt her inwardly cringe, but she gave her assent. He cast his spell. When it was complete, Terry sagged to his knees. Prada slipped away from him, no bigger than she had been in Volai's throne room. He knew she was now desperately hungry, but he could do nothing about it, not now. She could last a few days.
It would have to be enough. The blood devil didn't wait, but fled directly away from Najaha, using Terry's own body to shield her until she was out of sight in the trees.
Najaha watched this with narrowed eyes, and when she spoke, Terry did not understand the words, but recognized the sound as Arabic. She was casting her own spell.
Whatever it was, when the demon completed it she gazed keenly at him, then all around, and asked, "What was the sbell that you cast?"
"Prada didn't want to be parted from me. I had to ... convince her," Terry said, bone weary. He could have held himself upright, but it wouldn't serve his purposes to do so. Instead, he let himself fall forward, thumping into the grass as he turned his face to the side.
He could sense the change in his emotion, and it terrified him. It seeped into him. Like a paper towel soaking up water from one corner, love of Najaha began to soak into his mind.
I have to let it happen. I have to accept. I have to trust.
Just as he had earlier done with Koschei, Terry erected a barrier in his mind, hiding what he had done from himself until his trap was sprung. He hid his one hope, his only chance of victory away, and when it was done despair washed in to fill the void.
"Please," he mumbled. Now bereft of any hope at all, his feelings were still strong enough to try to save those he loved, even as that love faded. "Don't hurt them."
"They bowerful, and they mine. Just like you. Why would I hurt them?" Najaha crooned. "I see you weary. Rest. You need your strength, very soon. Carry him to my bed."
Halla picked him up, carried him into the cave. As she laid him down on a massive pile of pelts, she said, "Thanks Boss. Thanks for bringing me here. I'd have never found her without you. We just ... wouldn't have worked, you know?"
Terry didn't answer, and she left him alone.
As he drifted toward sleep, he found that he was grateful to all the women that had managed to keep him alive. Their journey together had brought him so far, and finally — after all this time, all the hardships and the suffering — he had found his one true love.
Najaha.
23
Halfrekkr
"So what will you do?"
The Mor and Halfrekkr stood in a solarium at the top of Svartheim. It was no true exit, for though the roof above them showed the open sky beyond the mountain peak, it was an illusion. The sunlight did not truly shine down on them, but even so Halfrekkr hated this room. He knew Mor had chosen to meet him here as a final sign of her displeasure. And likely for one other reason.
The walls all around them were hung with weapons and armor, the finest they had collected over the last several years, along with chests of coin and other treasures. All the wealth of Svartheim, and much of the wealth gained from their conquest of Torp, lay here.
Everything was organized, catalogued, and well-maintained. It was kept here of all places because most goblins and hobs would avoid the place. One could not fault the gobs for their sticky fingers, but it was best not to tempt the little brethren when death was the only penalty for disobedience.
Not that there are too many left alive to steal now, he thought grimly.
Halfrekkr scowled as he looked at his Mor. She stood with her arms folded under her chest, glaring back at him.
She was an inch or two shorter than he was and not nearly as heavily muscled, but she was strong. Very strong. Her tusks gleamed and the left had a silver cap. Gem-encrusted loops hung from her large, attractive ears and her black eyes glimmered with battle lust and malice.
She wore armor of high quality, and carried a pair of shortswords she knew well how to wield, but they both knew she would not be going into battle like the others. Halfrekkr also knew there was only one answer she would accept."
"I will use the sword," he said. "You will escape. Re-establish somewhere else."
"It must be here," she said flatly. "I will use the slides to get behind them and secure our prize, but their incursion is your fault. You will pay the price. See to it."
She glanced around, then raised an eyebrow. "Where is the bergsrå?"
"Fled."
She sniffed, hawked, then spat. "She would never leave her mountain. I will slaughter her dam and sire. That should bring her on the run to save her brother. Meanwhile, you have a job to do."
"Yes, Mor," Halfrekkr said quietly. "I will see to them."
"You'd better. You are already dead. All our plans are ruined."
He watched as she moved to a special rack nearby and pulled down a shortsword. The weapon was of simple, ancient design, though its hilt was solid gold. The sheath was gem-encrusted and ornate, though the runes etched into its metal had no meaning to Halfrekkr, or anyone else. It was an ancient weapon, and though none knew its origins, all knew the price for wielding it.
Draw the sword, and even the weakest gob could kill the greatest hero. The sword would cut through anything and everything, but could neither be dropped, nor discarded. At the passing of a single hour, the wielder invariably killed himself, and the sword returned to its sheath. It could only be drawn inside Svartheim.
"The only thing that could make you more pathetic now would be to fail in taking these invaders with you," Mor spat, holding the sheathed blade out to him.
"I bore you. I suckled you, saw your potential, lifted you above your brothers. I enslaved tutors to hone your skill, smiths to craft your blades and armor, mages to enchant it. I made you, gave you command of a great army. All this you have cost me.
Go, Halfrekkr. Kill for me. Repay your failures. Die."
He wrapped a heavy hand around the sheath, kept it as she let go. He stared at the golden hilt, then secured the sheath to his belt. He hated her, but he could not deny her. She was his Mor. She was Mor to them all.
He spun on his heel and strode for the stairs leading down. Mor followed him, twisted the handle that would close the heavy stone doors.
As they ground slowly shut, he had an urge to look back, to see one last time the face of the hob that had birthed a nation.
He stifled it, heard the stone doors boom closed behind him.
I am her greatest achievement. When I am done, she will never have another who is my equal.
Snarling, he strode down ornate halls decorated by bergsrå in ages past, before the goblins had claimed them, before the rise of the hobgoblins. They were his halls now, and they would be his until he died.
"Twisted!"
The loup garou shot past Laina in her guise as a massive wolf, all snarling teeth and claws.
Another ice lance shot down the corridor, this one deflected by Asturial's weakening mystic shield. She had already warned them that her power was drained, that she had very little magic left.
The lance was deflected to shatter against the wall next to them, spattering them all with ice fragments as Asturial lowered her hand, panting.
Yuri's eyes flicked from her back to Twisted as she hurtled over the line of shields protecting the mages. Even from here he could see the thick collars around the necks of the two gnolls, saw how ragged and tattered their robes were. They were obviously slaves, and as the first died in a spray of blood the expression on his face as he crumpled was one of relief, not pain. Neither gnoll made any effort to protect themselves, and died quickly.
"Run! Charge now!" Yuri yelled.
He, Laina, and Asturial charged the shield wall. Laina reached it first and in a prodigious display lifted the battered tower shield and turned it sideways, slamming the long-spears up and away as Asturial and Yuri got in close. They thrust between the shields, cutting and killing.
None of them dared look back, for Euryale stood exposed somewhere back there, in the dark. They had been surprised from behind three times by goblins in the last half hour, and both Euryale and Twisted had taken grievous injuries from poisoned darts and arrows. Had any of those hit Laina, they'd be in dire straits.
Yuri was in desperate need of rest. The only thing keeping him going now was the fire of combat. He had taken wounds and been unable to take enough of a break to get them healed. A glancing blow from a crossbow bolt had creased his chestplate and made every move painful, but he dared not remove his armor. A goblin had managed to sink a meat cleaver into the side of his left leg just below the knee, and he was leaving bloody footprints with every step he took.
He wasn't the only one hurting either. Asturial had some ability to repair her own body, but she was covered in gashes and cuts that, though they didn't bleed, told a grim story. Twisted was covered in her own blood, but underneath it he knew her fur was snow white.
Euryale's dress was in tatters from all of the damage she'd taken.
Strangely, Laina alone among them stood uninjured, and indefatigable. She hadn't said a word over the course of the last two hours, ever since they'd sealed the lower floors. She just trudged on, shifting her shield and covering them with grim competence. Not once had she pulled the ax from her back, but she remained the beating heart of their advance, and Yuri hadn't failed to notice that every single member of their team defended her flanks with fanatic resolve. Just like him, they knew she was the key.
The last of the hobgoblins went down when Twisted reached around from behind him and tore his throat apart, and for a moment, they had reprieve.
Yuri slumped against a wall and slid down next to one of the hobgoblins he'd just killed, gritting his teeth at the lancing pain in his lower leg.
Twisted was panting hard, and even Asturial seemed winded.
Laina set her shield aside and bent at the hip as she reached over Yuri's shoulder, pulling bottles from the pack that still rode his back. She handed one to him, and passed out the rest as Euryale, once more in her mask, came back into the flickering circle of light.
As he saw her, he was reminded they were down to eight torches. He still had tapers, but they were unreliable for combat. Unless they found Tyrfing soon, they would be in serious trouble.
The milk soothed his pain and stopped his bleeding, but left his leg tender. It also eased his exhaustion, but not much. There were limits to his endurance, even with Laina's help, and he knew he couldn't do this for too much longer.
As he looked around at the bodies that littered the floor, he could only shake his head. This was not what monster hunters lived for. It was slaughter. They had looted nothing, gained no treasure. The entire mountain had been a series of dormitories and rooms to suit the needs of the army they housed. It was obvious even from the lower floors that Svartheim had been shaped by magic, carved out in deliberate patterns that were strictly functional. On the one hand, that made their exploration easier. On the other ... what he had set out expecting to be a dangerous yet ultimately rewarding expedition had turned into nothing but virtually ceaseless battle.
He had long since lost count of the dead. Even by his own hand alone, and he had taken a fair share. But killing and destruction were not why he had wanted to be a monster hunter. There was no adventure in this.
But I am not here for me, he thought grimly. I came here to do a job.
Twisted grabbed the armored corpse next to him by the spaulders and hauled it off to one side, plopping down in its place unmindful of the blood she was sitting in. It hardly mattered, she was coated in it anyway.
Without a word, she leaned her head on his shoulder as she quietly panted.
He'd been about to get up, to move on, but having her there, he decided to take just a few minutes more. He set his head back against the stone, and just breathed.
"I'd say you two look cute together, but you're both so gore-spattered that I don't think cute is the right word," Euryale said with a smirk, folding her brazen claws under her chest.
"Nothing wrong with a little blood," Twisted said absently, then lifted her head to run her tongue over the fur of Yuri's neck. "Or a lot."
Asturial chuckled, golden eyes glimmering as she looked at them. Laina looked, but did not smile.
Yuri met her gaze and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Fine, chief. Just waitin' to move on."
He glanced at Asturial, quirking an eyebrow as his ears flicked questioningly.
"I think it's the ax," Asturial said with a shrug.
"What is?" Laina asked.
"You're endurance," Euryale said, confirming she'd noticed it too. "There's no way it's natural."
"My ax? I haven't used it for anything but door busting this whole time."
"I think you have," Yuri said quietly. "It is a legendary weapon, after all. There is strength in it, and in you. I do not pretend to understand such magic, but it is obvious that your ability to drive on is ... well, legendary."
Laina glanced back at the head of the ax that rode over her shoulder, then shrugged. "If it gets me through here, I'm good with it."
Yuri nodded, tilting his head away from Twisted to look at her as she continued to lick the blood from his throat and face.
"You like the taste?" he asked, though if he were honest with himself he didn't really want the answer. Halla apparently wasn't the only one to come out of the Labyrinth that seemed to have no problem eating people.
"Mm," was the only answer he got.
Euryale giggled, but Laina's tone was sour as she asked, "We goin'?"
It was obvious that watching the werewolf licking the blood out of his fur was bothering her, and Yuri nodded. Twisted leaned away from him as he pressed hands to the wall and shoved himself upright, then bent to retrieve the torch, rolling it in his hands to brighten the flame.
He miss
ed Mila in that moment. She had a spell that repelled filth, and he was coated in it. They all were.
Yuri twisted, cracking his back as he watched Euryale reloading her quiver from her pouch. It served the same purpose as the pack Yuri wore, but the magic in it seemed more potent. Items she wanted to put inside simply vanished, rather than having to fit inside the lip of the pouch.
She stood easily, but her snakes quested in all directions, and he knew she was watching.
Asturial said, "My magic is entirely depleted. I could light a candle, but don't ask for much beyond that. Muscle and steel is all I can offer now."
"We will make it work," Yuri said. "Twisted?"
"Really, really hungry, but otherwise good. If we were going to wait here a little bit I'd have eaten, but I guess we don't have time?"
Thinking of her ability to regenerate, Yuri moved to a hobgoblin body and cut away the armor on one leg, then severed it with a quick, violent stroke and said, "Take it with you."
"Aw, thanks!" She took the hobgoblin leg with a happy wag of her tail, but he turned away before she started to eat. He felt no sympathy for these dead, but the idea of eating something that could have complained about it in the common tongue just didn't sit well.
Laina looked positively ill, and though Yuri sympathized, all he said was, "We all have different needs."
Laina shuddered. "Ugh."
They resumed their advance. The hallways they strode through were far too ornate to have been made by goblins, or even hobgoblins. The walls around them were lovingly shaped as though they were clay rather than mountain stone. The torchlight flickered over images that ranged from something as simple as a single painstakingly crafted flower to mountain-valley vistas that seemed to have more detail the longer one looked.
A flicker of the adventuring spark returned to Yuri as he wondered who had made this place, and when. Whoever it was had been in love with stone, but he didn't think the dwarves were responsible. Their craftsmanship was exquisite, but their artwork tended toward the geometric, not the natural.