by Aaron Crash
Table of Contents
Summary
Black Forge Books Mailing List
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Books, Mailing List, and Reviews
Books by Black Forge
Books by Shadow Alley Press
Dedication
Acknowledgements
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Even More LitRPG on Facebook
Copyright
About the Author
Summary
The lands to the South are full of depraved women driven mad by forbidden sorcery. Now that sounds like fun for a barbarian from the Black Wolf Clan.
THE BARBARIANS OF THE frozen north live to fight, drink, hunt, and screw, and Ymir is a true son of the Ax Tundra, until a demon curses him with magic. Orphaned by battle and banished by his tribe, Ymir heads south to Old Ironbound, a university where the rich and well-connected learn to master magic. Will Ymir’s traditions and pride lead him to failure? Or will the centuries of knowledge—and the lusty human, elven, orcish, and dwarven noblewomen—give him limitless power?
Either way, while his days are all about studying and scheming, his nights are filled with wild sex in the beds of beautiful women. Because in the lands of the South, there are few men, and those Southern women have needs.
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Chapter One
YMIR STRODE UP THE red road, which had flattened out after a series of switchbacks that climbed through scrub. The red bricks were scorched from time and fire. Where he was going was an old place. Or so the man at the Winterhome inn had told him. He didn’t know anything for sure. This whole land was strange and troubling.
Down the stretch of road was the fortress at the top of the cape. A mighty central citadel stood in the center of four round silver towers blackened with age, fire, or both. The fortress was surrounded by a red wall the same color as the road.
The big man, weighted with gear, pondered his fate.
Ymir’s father, Ymok of the Black Wolf Clan, didn’t much like stories. The clan king didn’t quote from the Sacred Mysteries of the Ax very much, but when he did, he always drove the same thing into his son’s head.
When you strike, strike hard. Always use your full strength in whatever you do.
And that was what Ymir planned to do. He was tall and muscled, his hair the color of wet tundra wheat. He stood on a red brick road under a cloud-strewn sky near the ocean. So far, there was sunlight, though it felt cold.
Ymir was alone.
Ymir was cursed.
There was only one place where he could repair the damage done to him, and damn the Ax, he was going there, and nothing would stop him.
He was determined to strike, and strike hard.
He adjusted his pack, his battle ax, and the carcass of the deer slung across his shoulder. Most of his pack was filled with the bear fur that had kept him alive on the long journey from the North. He had two full wineskins and a full quiver. His bow was unstrung, the string waxed and stowed.
He’d gotten up early after sleeping in a farmer’s field, surrounded by alien trees, far too big to be natural. They’d failed to hide Ymir’s prey, and he dropped the animal with a single arrow. He’d hung his kill overnight from one of the strange trees to bleed out. On the Ax Tundra where Ymir grew up, trees were rare. Here, they grew into the sky and were so thick he couldn’t get his arms around one of them. The deer he’d killed was a small buck, only a few points on its antlers. Still, even if the animal were full grown, it would be scrawny compared to the elk herds that kept the tundra clans fed.
The deer wasn’t skinned yet; he could do that later. He might even make more clothes for himself since his elk-leather shirt and pants were stained after his months of travel. It was a long trip to the Sorrow Coast Kingdom from the tundra of the northern lands.
While he walked, he fingered the shaft of his double-bladed battle ax. He had it strapped under his pack. He’d forged and assembled the weapon himself with the help of his grandparents. While Ymir’s father wasn’t moved by the stories, his wife’s parents began every morning and ended every night whispering passages from the Sacred Mysteries of the Ax.
Ymir didn’t think he’d need his big blades. If he found himself in a fight, he had his hatchet hanging from his belt by a leather thong.
A crowd of people stood around a tall yellow gate—like the red brick road, the gate was scorched, as were the high walls the same color as the road. The silver stone towers only grew taller as he approached. He smelled the ocean, and he smelled the women. There were so many women, all in their finest dresses, showing legs, and cleavage, and hair nicely combed. A few men stood with arms folded, but not many. So the stories were true—the South was full of women.
Ymir grinned. Perhaps coming to Thera wouldn’t be as unpleasant as he first thought.
He lost his smile as the wound in his heart pinched him. It wasn’t the curse; no, it was his shame. Outcast. Alone. Without family or friends or battle brothers. Ymir had rarely been alone in his life. Three months of walking alone hadn’t given him a taste for solitude.
These people, however pretty, were not his clan. He knew how they would see him. He knew how they would treat him; the world didn’t have much mercy for strangers, especially strangers from the North.
The whispers started as the crowd let him pass through so he could get to the gate. Most spoke in a language he didn’t know. Others, though, spoke in Pidgin, and he’d learned that language early.
From the women:
“Such a big man. And handsome.”
“Agreed. Eyes so dark. Hair like dirty gold. I wonder what else is dirty.”
“Young. I thought the barbarians were all old.”
From the few men:
“Look at that ruffian and his deer. I’d bet you a silver sheck he eats it raw.”
“No one would take that bet for a silver. For a copper? Sure.”
“I wonder if he fucked it before he killed it.”
“No! After!”
Laughter followed. That last exchange was between two fishermen with barely a tooth in their heads.
Ymir chuckled at the joke. Men seemed to speak the same wherever he went.
Perfume from the women greeted him. Their sweet smells were so different from Ilhelda’s, but he
couldn’t think about her—that hurt. He’d never heal the wound in his heart if he thought of her.
A long table with a flowing scarlet tablecloth blocked the entrance. The fabric flapped in the breeze. The big yellow-painted wooden gates were thrown back against the blackened red wall. At the table sat a human, an elf, and a dwarf, all older than him but not so old as the two fishermen.
Behind the three stood a woman with bone-white hair and almond-shaped gray eyes, marked by age. Her ears were lost in her frosty locks, so he couldn’t see if they were pointed or not. She wore a red robe with a bright starburst on the front. Standing silently, she watched him. She carried herself as someone who had power and enjoyed it. He tried to guess her age and couldn’t. She seemed like a young woman who had been born an old soul, the body of a maiden and the soul of a crone.
Even that description wasn’t right. She seemed ageless. Was it because of her skin color or the shape of her eyes? He didn’t know. He’d never seen anyone like her before.
Behind her, the courtyard was empty save for two green-skinned women, their armored breastplates bowed to accommodate their tits. They stood with hooked, long-bladed spears next to a passageway blocked by a spiked gate. Orcs. Those guards were orcs.
Ymir hid his shock. These were the first Fallen Fruit people he’d ever seen. Of course, he knew about the other races of Thera, but part of him had been skeptical. Could there be pointy-eared forest dwellers? Or craggy-faced bearded men, living underground, as wide as they were tall? And what of the green-skinned warriors of the wide steppes? Were they as savage as tales told?
It seemed so. Ymir’s world had widened, unbearably so, ever since he first walked down into the dank cave of the Lonely Man, who hadn’t been a man at all. He swallowed at the memory of shadow and flame, darkness and destruction, and so much more. That had been months ago, when spring snow still clung to the tundra.
His eyes went to the three at the table. The elven woman had silver-colored hair and steely-blue eyes. A piece of jewelry, like a silver vine, covered her left arm from her hand to her elbow. On her right ring finger was a gray-and-black ring, which glimmered slightly.
The elf frowned at him. When she spoke, her Pidgin had a strange accent, stately and precise. “StormCry is down the road. You seem to be lost.”
Ymir grinned. “I’ve never been more lost. Yet, I know where I am, and I know what I want. Today is the first of September, the day of the Open Exam. I will take the test.”
Seated beside her, the human woman squinted, her smoldering green eyes marked with wrinkles. Salt lines streaked her pepper-black hair. She, too, had a ring on her right hand, a mixture of blue and white. Next to her stood a wall of water rock, also known as coral—or that was the Pidgin word for it. The big slab of dripping stone was odd, standing next to her, with crabs scurrying from hole to hole.
The dwarven man grunted laughter through his braided auburn beard. His eyes were a dark brown. His ring was green and brown. “Well, bless my stone heart, I’d have thought I’d seen it all. You don’t have the dusza for the task, boy.”
Ymir thumped the deer carcass onto the table. It was getting heavy, and he wanted to make a point. “I don’t know what dusza is. I do know I have a cock, a big cock, and that will give me entrance. You hold the Open Exam for men, isn’t that right?”
The elven lady was clearly shocked. The dwarven man burst into a storm of guffaws. The salty-haired woman’s eyes went to his elk-hide pants. The red-robed woman standing behind them didn’t show any sort of reaction.
Ymir’s hands went to his belt. “Should I show you the proof?”
The elf’s mouth fell open, showing fine white teeth in her fine pink gums.
The salty woman blushed from her chest to her hairline. Next to her, on the coral wall, a crab scurried from one orifice to another. Did the wall move? Or just the crab?
The crowd behind him fell into a hush.
“We don’t need to see your stem,” the dwarf chuckled. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Ymir, son of King Ymok, of the Black Wolf Clan.” He knew this wasn’t the truth. He had no clan, and he had no father, not anymore. He showed these southerners nothing. If they turned him away, he’d hack apart their table and grab the ageless woman by her red robes. He’d take the red-and-yellow ring off her hand. Of course she had one.
He’d use his ax to force them to follow their own rules.
It might be heroic to the outside eye, but his shame would tell the truth: he was desperate, and he had no place else to go. It had merely been luck that he’d been told of the Majestrial Collegium Universitas in the first place.
The university went by another name: Old Ironbound. The name alone seemed more like destiny than luck to Ymir. Iron he could understand. To be bound? No, that word made him bristle. The tundra clans were a free people.
The elf scratched his name on a piece of parchment. “Very well, Ymir. It seems you will have your chance, though you won’t get far without a dusza.” She made a face like she’d just swallowed a toad. She snapped her fingers, and one of the orc guards came forward. The guard had a wide jaw, strong, and while that should’ve made her ugly, it didn’t. Black hair, black eyes, she was as tall as Ymir. He wondered about her sex. Was it a normal woman’s slit? Or were there tusks down there? Drinking in tents growing up, he’d heard all sorts of strange stories.
Ymir collected his carcass and came around the table, on the side of the salty woman and her green eyes. The rock wall split down the center and along the sides. Arms of jagged rock came up in a defensive position as the legs bent. White eyes opened on different parts of the thing: its upper chest, a shoulder, down its arms. Crabs dashed away to hide in the porous body of the thing.
“By the Axman’s beard!” Ymir cursed. This thing wasn’t a coral wall, but a coral giant, strange and stinking of seaweed and crab shit.
He whipped out his hatchet. He’d cut the eyes out of the thing first and hope those crabs didn’t leap on him to clip off his ears.
The salty woman laughed. “Easy, clansman,” she said in a musical voice. “This is my friend, a golem I created out of coral.”
The wall shambled back, stone squealing and squeaking off stone. A few crabs inched out to see if there was any danger.
Ymir circled the golem and saw other milky eyes blinking on its back. Fighting it would be a challenge since it could see him coming from every direction. And how did you kill something made out of stone?
“Fucking magic.” He felt the pain pinch his heart.
The orc guard escorted him away from the coral golem and to the mouth of a passageway. A spiked gate rose, and she ushered him inside.
They walked, not speaking, their footsteps echoing. She wore thick boots. He’d lost his boots on his journey and had to make bark-bottomed sandals, wrapped in elk-hide strips to keep his feet warm.
Ymir thought to touch her skin. Would it be rough? Would her hair be like weeds, or would it be silkier? He was curious. He considered asking the strange creature any number of questions. However, he had a definite purpose here, and it didn’t involve women. Not yet, at least.
Two months was a long time for a man of the Black Wolf Clan to go without the caresses, the scents, and the sighs of a woman.
A proverb came to him: Do the first task first. Patience is in love with cunning. Grandmother Rabbit liked that so much that Grandfather Bear would grumble every time she said it.
Ymir and the orc woman emerged from the passage and walked onto a field of green grass. The sides were a clutter of structures, warrenlike houses, piled on top of each other. The field led to a blackened silver tower, one of four at the points of the compass, surrounding the central citadel he’d seen before. The four towers each had a bell hanging at the top behind barred windows.
As for the central fortress, the citadel rose to a spire where a large flag fluttered. The flag was divided into four sections, though the actual images were lost in the movement. The front of the nearest
tower was adorned with a golden sunburst plaque, with a smattering of glass windows in the stone. Glass, real glass—the Therans might be depraved, but they certainly enjoyed their riches.
In the center of the field stood a golden tent, the biggest he’d ever seen—and Ymir knew about tents. The central poles must be made from the huge trees he’d walked through, but even then, what power held the canvas taut? More lady orc guards organized a dozen young men Ymir’s age or younger into a line as they waited their turn to take the Open Exam.
Everything smelled so wet. Though the sun was trying, it was failing to banish the chill. It was late summer, early fall, perhaps. He shouldn’t be cold, yet that dampness got into his bones. The Ax Tundra was a dry place, mostly—even the snow was dry. Ymir gritted his teeth.
The Axman’s moon was at its zenith, with the Shieldmaiden’s moon peeking shyly above the horizon. Of course, the third moon wouldn’t be seen for a few more years, in the year of the Wolf.
Ymir took his place at the end of the line. The green grass covered soft earth under his feet. Such a big tent in a wide field surrounded by walls and fortifications. This place had been a fortress, it seemed. The silver stone had been patched with black rock, but both were weathered. The rains here must be relentless, he thought.
The boy in front of him turned and looked Ymir up and down. Perhaps he wasn’t a boy, but he couldn’t be called a man. He was dressed in a fine shirt and silken pants, both embroidered with different patterns. Brown hair framed a doughy round face. He smirked. “I see you brought a snack.”
Ymir fixed his glare on the kid. “This is lunch. If you are not careful, you’ll be dinner. There is nothing I enjoy more than human flesh. Though I am curious to see what the meat of the other races tastes like.”
The shock in the boy’s eyes was comical. He collected himself. “That’s not true. You’re not a cannibal.”
Ymir pinched the boy’s arm. “Yes, there is some fine marbling there. Your juices would smell good dripping on my fire. Damn the Ax, but I am getting hungry.”
The boy turned and took a few steps away from Ymir.
