Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  “I’ve always learned quickly,” I responded with a wolfish grin as I twisted the torque off.

  The next day and a half later passed in a flash of Ullr’s arrow and found me at the edge of the Dreyriviôr; its thick, dark, and ominous presence gave tale to its bloody history as much as its name did. Grandmother’s pendulum said that those I seek should be within the western edge on the north side and within a day’s hike. She was kind enough to send it with me in case I needed added direction and she showed me how to use it, though I wasn’t as good with that as I was pushing poor Nantelma around. Delicate touches didn’t seem to be my strong suit. I finally managed to command my Odin sight, suppressing that and freeing it was the hardest thing I learned the night before last and it took the efforts of both women to teach me the knack of it.

  I pulled out the pendulum, cleared my mind and left only my goal. Five breaths later the pendulum swung and tugged, the terminated point of the quartz pointed southwest of where I was. I tucked the tool back into my belt pouch with a grin and started hiking through the thicket. I did it! My very first völva working by myself.

  Where were Nantelma and Magnhild to see me now!

  Especially after some of the more... frustrating parts to the lessons from that night.

  Throughout the day I repeated the process, adjusting my course as needed to stay on track. The sun was high in the sky when I was at the edge of the woods, though the canopy hid most of it, and by the time I thought I was close, the sky was changing colors and darkening into sunset.

  This time, as soon as I had my mind cleared, the pendulum practically jumped due south from where I was, which confirmed my gut and how I read the map. It was time to track and stealth.

  Nearby was an old oak with large hollows in its roots, which hid my pack well. I noted the pattern of the nearby trees in the dim light but I did make sure that anything of import was on my person in case I didn’t locate it again or had to leave quickly in a different direction.

  Crouched down low, I meandered through the underbrush and contemplated how to approach. I started to the left and slightly east, which brought me slightly uphill to the clearing, but I stopped once I got a bad gut feeling. Both of my grandmothers said that I should follow my gut, so I followed their advice and worked my way slightly west. This way sent me to an area slightly lower than the clearing, but it was thick with brush and shrubs that hid me well. Within two dozen strides, my gut tensed again, and with a sigh of exasperation, I made my way toward the gully. Not my ideal route, the stream that ran through the clearing was in the gully and the gully sides were not easy to climb in a pinch, but once I started, a sense of calm eased over me. The forest thinned out, up ahead was one of the few clearings within the Dreyriviôr. It was someplace I had camped when traveling through, and it made sense for it to be used as a base location for the attackers. If roles were reversed it was where I would have made camp, whether it was for a small group or a force.

  The bottom of the gully was wide enough on either side of the stream for two men to walk comfortably side to side and was mostly firm underfoot. Goose prickles crawled up my arms and, too late, I remembered that I should have freed my Odin sight before starting on this final stretch. Instincts sent me down and to the right into the stream as a good-sized branch fell. Small bells rang from somewhere nearby, and when I brought up my head I saw that I was trapped.

  In front of me were four spirits, all of which had been large men in their lives. The left two on the western bank were of dark skin; they blended into the twilight, their bright clothing and the right one’s head wrap were the only things that made seeing them easily possible. The two on the east bank had strange, colorful clothing that tied on the sides, yellow-toned skin, and oddly slitted eyes. I hadn’t traveled as far as some when I went viking, but I still saw a good chunk of the world and I had never seen their like. Behind me were two more, both looked like pale-skinned wild men with fae knotted hair and boiled leather armor that was piece-mealed together. I had fought their like before, and they were pieces of nasty business.

  All six started to close on me.

  Knee deep in the rocky, slippery stream was not where I wanted to defend myself. Especially if the bells announced an intruder to their living counterparts, who could easily shoot down at me from the tops of the gully like apples in a barrel. I unsheathed Explauit and crouched as I rung my thoughts for options to save my skin. The icy flow of the stream splashed on the back of my legs. I growled in frustration at the distraction, then remembered something.

  Flowing water. Spirits can’t cross water that flowed without being helped across! My wolfish grin crossed my face as I sized up my opponents. There is only one way to go from here, and it is the way they do not want me to go.

  I rushed forward and stayed in the stream while I begged the gods, silently, to guide my footsteps. A full arc swing caught the dark-skinned one on the west bank and the slitted eyed one on the east bank that were closest to the stream, partway through their middles. It felt like I took a practice swing, there was no resistance, physically, but when the Damascus steel of the blade touched their skin it silently hummed in my hand and I felt it pull the energy of the two dead men up through the sword, into the pommel, and then it dripped out like oddly colored blood onto the ground. Both men screamed banshee-like wails as they grabbed at their sides; the dark-skinned one bled a soft leaf green and the slit-eyed one a bright violet, and both lost much of the detail.

  Forward, ever forward. The battle lust rose within me like a song as it demanded that I fell all of my enemies around me. I wrapped the song tight within me. This isn’t the time or place to sink into bloody battle. This is the time to think, to stay aware.

  The other four dead follow me, their forms flashes of transparent color behind me. A bonfire came into view as I rounded a corner, its light revealed a handful of archers that raced on the top of either side of the gully like I thought they would. When the first on either side caught sight of me they skidded to a stop and the others behind them comically ran into the leaders, which knocked them flat on their faces. Excellent. It was like I suspected, they weren’t trained in physical prowess, they lacked the training that would have given them the skills and muscle memory to predict each other and move as one.

  Ahead were six men and women in white robes with golden sashes and gold disks on chains, each seemed to be of various ages but they all shared a similar look: high foreheads, square jaws, sharp jutted cheekbones with rounded noses. Their straight hair varied in color from golden brown on one barely-grown woman to a deep earthy brown on a man that was maybe a decade my senior, and one spry old man with a white shock of hair that floated around his head like a nimbus.

  As I closed in, I heard the six of them chanting as one, their spirits combined into a rainbow that twisted and formed into a rope above them, then shot towards me. I did not want to be touched by that rope. I threw myself forward into a roll, sword out to the side in my right hand and my left arm was up to protect my head. The roll took out the one völva- a tall, lean man with dark hair- at the knees, and he toppled over me. I swung around to slash down behind me and caught him between his neck and shoulder, the well-honed Damascus steel bit deep into flesh and bone as a spray of arterial blood turned the wound into a gruesome fountain. The creak of a bow draw cued me to somersault to my left, which knocked me into the legs of the middle-aged woman that had been standing next to the man, the momentum knocked her down as well as I pulled my blade from the now dead man’s neck. I needed to get out from in front of the fire; my silhouette offered an excellent target for the archers and I did not wish to become a pin cushion today.

  I pulled my legs under me with a hard push up from my arms and I swung the flat of my blade into the side of the prone woman’s face. She crumpled to the ground with an audible crunch as she landed face first, her nose must have hit a rock on the way down but she should live. Two living and two dead down. Five archers, four völvas, and four spirits to go. I
loosened my grip on my blood-lust and let loose a howl of glory and hatred as the edges of my vision turned hazy and red. The next two men, a middle-aged one and the old white-haired one, went down easily in a flurry of slashes as they tried to back away from my fury.

  An arrow whistled past me as I pulled Explauit out of the old man’s stomach; I ducked and ran behind the fire. Two of the archers were missing altogether, and the final three were fanned out in front of the gully, the middle one keeping an intent eye on it.

  The spirits that harassed me in the gully looked like they were struggling against the tide, thy almost swam through the air towards me. I focused my Odin sight and saw that the spirits truly were fighting the surge, my own spirit’s power pulsed out of me in wave after wave that pushed them back three steps for everyone they fought for. What would happen if I went full berserker? Not that I could, I don’t have the herbs and drink on me to do that.

  The final two völva split and came at me from both sides of the fire; both were young and fresh-faced. The girl approached from my right and the boy from my left. I almost felt guilty, even in the heat of my battle-lust, before I charged the boy. His face paled as he tried to stop and run away. He never got an arm up to try to defend himself before I chopped him down. I used the momentum of my swing to face the girl and found that she had rushed forward, face pale and drawn as she bounced against my chest in surprise. Her hand was raised with a wicked, twisted dagger in it that felt like it bounced off my chain mail when she swung it down. I pushed her back and struck her with my off-hand just hard enough to knock her out of her senses, and out of my way.

  Another arrow shot by, this one skidding off the chain of my shoulder. The archers would be more difficult. Did those two run away or are they circling and biding their time? They all had simple short bows, they didn’t have much range to work within.

  I grabbed the end of a bough that was as thick as my arm and only half on fire and threw it at the archer to the right with my off-hand. I didn’t need accuracy; I needed distraction. As the burning branch flew threw the air I sprinted around to the other side of the fire and dodged side to side at the archer on the left. He let loose one arrow when I rounded the flames that went wide and into the fire, and when he finally had another trained on me I was in arms reach. The middle archer watched this, drew, and released. I grabbed the one in front of me and used him as a shield, though I barely got his body between us in time. The arrow took the archer high in the back and I shoved him to the side to die in his own time. The middle archer turned and instead of attempting to face me, only to find that his final companion that was here had been hit by the flame consumed bough and was trying to stamp and pat out the flames that danced along his body.

  I charged forward again and finished the last two off with little effort.

  Out of breath, I panted from the exertion and took in my surroundings. The last two archers were still missed, but nowhere to be seen. Same with the final four spirits. Exhaustion waved over me and my knees almost went out. I breathed in deeply, let it out slowly, and reigned in my Odin’s sight as I sheathed my blade. It almost felt like trying to close an eye that I physically didn’t have right above and between my brows on my forehead. Everything around me became sharper; edges were more defined, colors more muted, and the light of the fire made a bigger difference in what I could and couldn’t see. The bodies became just bodies, some breathed and some didn’t, instead of bodies in the center of a cloud of color. In battle it didn’t distract me, if anything it tightened my senses and helped me feel out vulnerabilities, I just KNEW the best place to land a blow. After everything was over though the constant swirl of extra colors was just distracting.

  I walked around the fire and looked out into the woods just to double-check the archers weren’t on their way back when a rustle of cloth behind me caught my attention. I spun to find the two women behind me, both held up matching twisted daggers. The older one definitely had a severely broken nose and both had bruises where I had struck them.

  “I have no wish to kill or harm either of you more than you already are,” I told them in a calm voice as I raised my open palms up. “I want to end the attack on my village. You two can leave and I will leave, you can keep your lives and I will have a peaceful village again.”

  “You ruined my FACE you stupid heathen!” The older woman screamed with a heavy accent that I couldn’t place, then both rushed me with daggers raised. It was easy enough to catch hold of the young girl’s wrist; I twisted her arm as I forced her to drop her blade, the older woman was craftier and slipped through my guard. She seemed more trained than the others, once she was within my guard she dropped the dagger down, squatted slightly, and pushed up with her leg strength as she braced behind her dagger. She jarred me as she hit me in the gut, though the strike paused her momentum. That instant gave me the chance I needed, I swung my fist around sideways and caught her in the ear with an audible crunch.

  “I gave you a chance, you are now going to come with me. I’m sure you will be willing to answer the questions my wife has. If not, she can be very persuasive.”

  I walked around the camp while dragging the struggling girl behind me. When I came to the other side of the clearing where the fire’s light barely touched I finally was able to see the cages. My stomach dropped at the sight of them. The cages were empty, but I saw items that I knew belonged to the different missing villagers. Behind them were shallow graves half-heartedly mounded with a shallow layer of rocks. The child-sized ones clenched my heart and washed clean any guilt of killing the völvas and taking one as a prisoner.

  I started to feel a wetness seep down my stomach and a stickiness that clung my padded tunic to my skin. A look down told me what I needed to know; the girl’s first blow must have snagged and found a weak spot in my chain shirt, so when the woman stabbed me with the force that she did, her dagger made it through.

  I needed to get home, and I needed to get home right then and there.

  I woke with a start and sat up only to fall back in pain. Gut wound. A slow, painful death. Details were blurred, I didn’t know when the girl finally got away from me, but when she did, she ran. I continued to stumble through the forest, my blood adding to the blood of the thousands who had died here in battles past. At some point the pain and blood loss were too much and I lost consciousness. I knew I wouldn’t recover from my injuries, not unaided, and I knew aide was unlikely as I laid there on the forest floor, alone and lost in the unknown darkness.

  A wave of sadness passed through me. I will never get to meet my child, never will I kiss my wife, never will I feel the salt winds whip through my hair. Glory is coming for me though, this wound was earned in a battle, small as it was, in the defense of my home and kin. I dozed off as I thought about the feasts that awaited me.

  An older man in a brown wool tunic, salt and pepper beard that matched his frazzled head of hair appeared above me. There was a small, fluffy bay mare with a thick mane and tail that stood nearby with a travois that hung behind her. The man and the nearby bundles strapped to the travois smelled like various herbs and spices, heady and rich.

  “You aren’t a Valkyrie,” my voice rasped.

  “And you aren’t dead; we are both surprises to the other,” the man gruffed as he lifted the water skin to my lips. “Here, slowly lad, slowly! Just a sip at a time.”

  The water tasted strange, it had a flat bitterness to it, but my thirst was so great I did not care. There was hope for life. I survived this long, it means that I can mend. My pain grew distant and I knew darkness again.

  Again I woke only to find fires burned around me, yet I was quite chilled. I raised my hand to wipe the sleep from my eyes to only find it bound with thick ropes. I tested my legs to discover they were also bound, though where the dagger pierced my belly had been bandaged. I blinked rapidly to clear my vision, only to discover that I was naked except for my Damascus steel valknut and laid out on a stone slab with strange symbols painted on it. They weren’t th
e runes I’m familiar with, and they were a strange reddish-brown color. Dried blood.

  My panic rose and choked me.

  Four stone pillars were topped with ornate metal bowls which burned with a sweet smell and were decorated with monstrous screaming faces. There were more strange swirls and symbols drawn between me and the pillars, with stepping stones pointing in the cardinal directions. The tree line was far away with the ritual area in the center of the meadow. Not one of the recent battles, a different one that I recognized. It was much deeper into the Dreyriviôr. No grass grew within ten paces of the pillars though. That is strange. This is very rich and fertile soil. Why is there no grass here?

  The old man smiled at me as he stepped into the light, an evil gleam in his eyes as he studied me.

  “Excellent, you’re awake!” the man smiled gleefully through his beard. “I’ve been looking for a hearty warrior to do an experiment on, and my warriors have been given their own promises so I can’t, in good faith, use them. But you, good sir! You took out almost all of my acolytes, severely hurt two of my ghosts, killed three of my archers, and you survived three days before I found you!”

  I snarled with rage as it bubbled and boiled forth in a battle cry. I clenched my fits as I tried to rise. Pain coursed through me from my gut wound and made me cry out. I gave voice again to my rage and frustration again as the insane man just stared stoically at me, arms across his chest with a smug smile on his face.

  “Yes, roar away! That’s the fire, the spirit, that I want!” The crazy stranger pulled a long ornate, twisted blade with odd symbols etched into the sides, its handle a deep red. “Now, I’m a patient man but at the moment I’m very eager to start.”

  He strode over to me with almost a skip to his step. The bandages that wrapped my wound were bloody from exertion, so when he removed them they pulled free easily. The blade was poised above me, twisted point aimed down toward my abdomen, the man fondled my valknut with a crooked smile and plunged the knife into me. He twisted the icy cold blade around, each motion was pure agony as I felt parts inside me sever and spill into and out of my stomach. I screamed, then screamed more. I fought against the ropes in vain, even though my struggles only dug them further into my skin. Soon my wrists bled freely, though I barely felt that pain in comparison to the icy fire in my stomach. Finally he pulled the blade out, now wet with my life’s blood, and wiped it against my valknut.