After a quarter hour, I dried my tears; all they were doing was distracting me from the precious sleep I needed. Diaval wouldn’t want me to cry; she’d want me to fight with twice the strength so she could fight alongside me in spirit. She wouldn’t want me to grieve; she would want me to kill the thing that did her in, and if I couldn’t kill it, she would want me to face it, never fear it, and spit in its metaphorical face.
I had to do that now, for Diaval.
When I did finally fall asleep, I dreamt of the world on fire.
21
WE ALL FALL DOWN
IT WASN’T SURPRISING to find myself wide awake in the early hours of the morning, watching patches of red break through the misty sky. There was too much going on, too much to think about, and in a few hours, we had to fight a monster, stronger than anything we’d been up against before, and our forces were decimated with Diaval sick and Soren gone.
Usually someone had some lucky, harebrained plan that ended up working, but no one here was inspired at all. It was like we were all resigned to this fight somehow leading to our deaths, to Diaval’s death, to Soren’s death. What would happen to the stag’s power if I died? I still couldn’t reach it, not even when I stretched my mind to the farthest corners I could. Maybe it had already been drained from me and passed on to another person, someone who may not be in intimate danger of dying.
Sometime, still before everyone else was awake, Rose came and sat outside with me.
“I’m sorry, by the way,” he said. “About Soren. I don’t know why he did what he did, but leaving you high and dry like that … asshole could’ve wrote a note or something.”
I hmmed in response. Soren wasn’t really a note type of person; then again, he also never struck me as the type to leave in the middle of a crisis either. He was good, but he had his faults. So did I. But I thought that our ability to openly speak with each other had changed for the better in the last year. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.
But none of that speculation would do us any good now. We had an enemy, we had to kill it, our odds were low but they weren’t zero. Whatever Soren’s motives were, they didn’t matter. He was gone and lingering on whys and other questions wouldn’t ever make me feel any better. Despite the pain in my chest, I needed to get on with this.
“How’s Diaval?” I asked after a moment of quiet.
Rose shook his head. “The trick with the maggot saved her life, probably. It ate all the necrotic tissue and left the healthy parts alone, so we were able to remove it. The wound doesn’t have much pus in it anymore, but it’s still really red and angry inside and on the skin around it.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s the best thing Lydian’s ever done for us.”
“I don’t like thinking of ‘Lydian’ and ‘best’ in the same sentence. He’s here for his own survival. He was willing to unbalance the entire Permafrost and assaulted and disfigured innocent people.” A bad taste formed in my mouth. “I try not to judge as much as I used to, but some things you can’t forgive. But you’re right. It’s odd to say, but I’m grateful Lydian knew what to do.”
“At least he’s not an incoherent mess anymore,” Rosamund said.
I snorted. “Small miracles.”
“Diaval isn’t waking up, though,” he said, tone switching to become more serious. “She’s not dead, but … she’s not asleep in the regular way. I can’t rouse her. I don’t know how long she’ll be that way or what we can do.”
“She has to wake up. Even if she can’t fight. She’s the strongest out of all of us and the only thing keeping us together,” I said. “Never mind the Erlking and the stag and Lydian as a liminal being, if we didn’t have Diaval smash our heads together every time we argued, we’d be dead already.”
Rose’s lips quirked up. “You’re not wrong about that.”
I opened the pack beside me as well as my jar of pemmican, eating the last spoonfuls before there was none left. The paste was thick and hard to swallow, even with water, and once again I found myself making a face at the taste of the food. Somehow it managed to taste worse than usual.
“Disgusting,” I finally said once I could unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
Rose chuckled at the sight, and I rolled my eyes and said, “Did Seppo ever tell you how we met?”
“He mentioned it before. Something about dragons and nökkens and annoying Lydian, and you threatening him with physical actions every time he annoyed you.”
“Yeah, that’s basically it.” The sky was turning beyond the thick mist, and soon those sleeping would be woken so we could examine Fjalar’s lair and maybe think of a plan before we went in with weapons raised. Or, at least, Lydian and Seppo would wake. I wasn’t sure what would happen with Diaval.
Closing my eyes, I sent out a prayer to Freya, among other things the goddess of magic users, and begged for her to save Diaval’s life. I couldn’t lose her yet. She was a light in my darkness, the snarky voice when all the guys did something dumb, and the first person who’d sought me out after the coronation, practically forcing her magic lessons onto me with dark sparkling eyes.
Now all I saw when I shut my eyes was her on the ground, rolled up with her knees to her chest, shivering but never waking. The life drained from her—unable to make any movements, let alone comments. Terror built up in me at the thought of her dying. At anyone here dying. Okay, maybe not Lydian, but everyone else.
* * *
WHEN THE REST of the group woke, they ate the final portions of their meals and sat soberly with the two of us as the day finally peeked into existence. Even Seppo, never without a joke, was somber as he stared back into the burrow we’d been sleeping in. Diaval lay in there, covered with every fur and blanket imaginable, with supply bags left for her so she knew she wouldn’t starve, and a note in case she woke up but we failed in our battle.
Without so much as a word, we grabbed our weapons and followed Lydian. The snow and ice beneath us was stained black as if it were burned, and heat began to fizzle in the air, making the ice specks melt in mid-swirl until they were replaced by ash.
We approached a giant fjord, standing at the edge of the left fork where there was still snow and ice. On the other side, hot lava ran through and dripped down stone that fissured the earth there. For the first time in days, my eyes lay on a landscape other than snow and ice—trees and large boulders and a giant cave that rested in the middle of the fork and looked like it went deep down into the ground, farther than the eye could see.
The ground shook suddenly, and I fell over as the others scrambled to hang onto their balance. My elbow hit something hard; wincing at the sharp pain, I scurried toward the others as they dove behind a boulder.
“This is it,” Lydian hissed. “If you have any prayers, say them now.”
I tensed with my bow already in position and three arrows in my hand, two tucked away in my back fingers until I could use them. With my heart beating in my throat, I wouldn’t have time to keep reaching back for every single arrow.
The ground continued to quake as Fjalar continued toward the entrance of his lair. Did he know we were out here? Could he smell our blood? Did it smell good to him? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“How big is Fjalar, anyway?” Seppo asked quietly. “Like, I know it’s basically a giant rooster but roosters are pretty small, so how much of a threat could it be?”
“Does the fact that it could end the world mean nothing to you?” Rose said. “I’m very sure it’s big and deadly.”
“The books describe it as bigger than a small mountain, but they tend to overexaggerate,” Lydian said. “They like doing that with the godly creatures of the nine realms wherever they lurk. But I have a feeling that my son is right, if less verbose, regarding the rooster being ‘very big and deadly.’”
“Don’t call me your son,” Rose growled but earned a shush from Lydian as the giant creature ambled out of its home, dragging a chain that was attached to one scaly leg—probably the only thing
keeping it from going on a killing rampage.
My breath was stolen from my lungs as I finally saw the monster in full. I knew it was supposed to essentially be a giant rooster, but whoever had written that description was being incredibly generous.
Fjalar’s beak was impossibly sharp, and he had black gums that created a stain around his mouth. His feathers—if you could call them that—started out on his skin as scaly appendages before turning into feathers with razor sharp edges, and each wing had a vicious claw. But even more vicious were his scaly, disfigured feet with their wide talons that gleamed in the sunlight—less like the feet of a bird and more like the feet of a dragon.
Seppo sucked in a breath. “That is a monster cock.”
“Honestly, Seppo? Timing,” Rose said as he tracked the beast with his eyes.
“I feel like we should attack from different spots. Janneke in the front, Seppo and I will take the sides. Lydian, you dive in wherever someone is struggling.” Rose continued, “That’s our best shot at this.”
“Wait,” I said. “That thing’s taller than all of us. Other than me, how are we supposed to even hit it?”
Rose frowned, taking that into consideration. “Aim for the underbelly if you don’t have the reach. Seppo might be able to stab at the wings. You’ll be our main source of power, Janneke, so that whole arrow-in-the-eye trick would do well right now.” He looked at Lydian. “Do you even have a weapon?”
“You think these fine people”—he motioned toward me and an empty spot which I assumed represented Soren—“let me carry a weapon?”
I sighed and pulled out the two axes stashed on my hips. “These are mine, and I want them back.”
“How good are you at throwing axes?” Rose asked Lydian.
“Better than Soren back when he had two eyes,” Lydian said.
I clenched my fist at the joke but didn’t say anything. We couldn’t divide ourselves anymore.
Seppo was still staring at the “monster cock” as he called it. “Let’s go do this before my rational mind finally kicks in and I flee in terror.”
We all glanced toward one another, nodding our agreement, and then rose from behind the boulder. We barely got a chance to get away before Fjalar’s great beak smashed down where we had been hiding, cracking the boulder open and turning it into a pile of little rocks with the strength of the strike. The groove in the earth where we’d been sitting was massive, enough for a fully grown person to be able to stand inside and not see over the top of the hole.
It took everything inside of me not to freeze in shock and horror at the destruction one peck from Fjalar’s beak caused. But the claw of the massive beast came down right before me and ripped my clothing as I rolled away just in time.
Rose, Seppo, and even Lydian had varying looks of shock on their faces, eyes wide and their jaws dropped slightly open. But they followed Rose’s orders as their shock began to wear off.
Seppo had his featherstaff out and was quickly rushing in and out from underneath the bird, avoiding the legs as much as he could as they swatted at him and made large craters in the ground while doing so. Every so often, he got a hit and the bird would shriek but thankfully not the shriek we were fighting to keep it away from. The shrieks to start Fimbulwinter were alleged to shake the very ground and make all living creatures fall to their knees in pain. The first shriek released the army of the dead all by itself, while the second broke Fenrir’s—the giant wolf whose children would eat the sun and moon and turn the world dark and silent—chains, the third woke the angry giants from their sleep, and all together the battle for the end of the world would begin.
I took a defensive position, lined up a shot, and scowled when my arrows did nothing against the scale-like skin of the creature, only ripping through the feathered part. Once again, I would have to aim for the eye or maybe the throat and chest where the skin might be weaker.
Rose had gotten creative and tied his axes to the end of two ropes and swung them around individually before aiming for the giant rooster. One swing missed but the other lodged in the non-scaly part of the wing, and Fjalar screamed in pain and lashed out with a mighty swing of his wing and knocked Rose clear across the battleground and into another boulder. The force caused the boulder to crack like a spiderweb and crumple over, some falling backward and some hitting Rosamund. Blood streaked his body, and he didn’t move from where he’d been thrown. He gave a painstaking groan.
“Rose!” Seppo cried out in anguish, and from his very face, it was easy to see he was fighting internally whether he should continue to fight or run to his lover. His eyes became set hard in his face in an expression I’d barely ever seen on him, and he turned on his heel to face Fjalar.
“I will gut you for that,” he growled. “Cover your ears!”
Lydian and I both had the sense to retreat with our ears covered as Seppo let out a mighty whistle causing the oversized bird to drop to its knees, screaming in pain. Seppo himself had his fists clenched so hard that blood began to pour from the marks of his nails and dribbled down his nose, ears, and eyes.
Fjalar bled out of the same orifices, and Seppo increased the pitch of his whistle as the blood came more freely from his face, and he himself became pale and shaking. His whistle also filled his mouth with blood and it dripped down his chin.
Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, all openings in the face bleeding as his face became pale and drawn, his cheekbones hollowed out, his eyes bulging and bloodshot—fear flashed like lightning in my body. In my brain Seppo was safe, he was kind, he couldn’t harm me. Now with his bloody, emaciated body and the fire in his eyes, he was like a demon straight out of Hel.
The bird lay its head down and used its wings to cover its face from the infernal noise, and Seppo began his charge. Quickly at first, but the toll of his power was taking from him too, and as he rose in pitch, the skin of his arms began to split open in vertical cuts. Blood ran down and darkened his clothing before he was halfway there. The tiny wounds we all received—scratches and stings and regular wear and tear—opened all over his body like blood eyes, weeping with rage.
Lydian and I exchanged a look, and we nodded toward each other as he bolted forward to grab Seppo and throw him out of the way, breaking his magic whistle. The cuts on his arms didn’t close up, though the blood on Seppo’s face continued to trickle to a stop while the freshly opened wounds slowly returned to their normal forms. He turned his rage onto his savior.
“Why did you do that?” he shouted. “I was about to kill it!”
“You were about to kill yourself,” Lydian said.
As if to prove his point, Seppo suddenly gasped and fell to his knees, coughing up blood as he did so. Lydian grabbed the back of his hood and hauled him over to where Rosamund lay, and with a growl on his lips, he told him to stay right there. The growl probably wasn’t needed as Seppo could barely keep his eyes open and blood still fell from the orifices in his face.
Which left the fight to me and Lydian. For once, fighting together to help each other instead of kill each other. Somewhere, the gods were laughing at the irony of me defending my most-hated enemy.
I managed to get an arrow in one of Fjalar’s eyes. Remembering what my father taught me. Breathe, nock your arrow, breathe, draw back your bowstring, breathe, catch sight of your target, then release as you expel the air inside of you. The arrow soared true and landed the hit, but either it wasn’t sharp enough or wasn’t deep enough because the beast still lived, and the arrow only made a superficial wound.
Again and again I shot until I realized I was running low on arrows in my own quiver and soon would have to switch to Soren’s. Some of the arrows stuck out of Fjalar in an awkward angle, but mostly they only mildly bothered him, as he shook off most of the projectiles with little to no care.
Lydian took a stance beside me. “We’re not going to win this fight,” he said emotionlessly.
“We have to try, at least!” I argued.
“Look around you. What do you think we
’ve been doing?” Lydian motioned toward the blood-splattered ground and the two fallen bodies of our friends. “We’re lucky they still are alive,” he said.
“We have to do this. We can’t let the end of the world happen!” I shouted.
He shook his head. “I appreciate your determination. It has always impressed me, in fact. But we’re not going to win this battle. We’ll die.”
“We need one last chance! We need to try!” My face was hot and desperate; my clothes clung to my skin with either sweat or blood. Deep down in my body, my muscles screamed and my bones ached, and the world was fuzzy in my eyes. I leaned dangerously on my bow, breathing heavy and fast.
From beside me, Lydian didn’t look much better, and the two others fighting with us lay in a pile, alive but unconscious.
Lydian was right. We would die out here fighting a battle that we couldn’t have won in the first place. Fjalar made a run for us, but the chain around his ankle kept him from actually catching up to us, and for that I was thankful, as the two of us backed off and ran to the unconscious bodies of our friend. Seppo moaned when I checked over him and I mouthed, I tried. I brushed his hair back and told him he was a hero while Lydian was looking at Rosamund with something bordering on sentimentality in his eyes. Like it was the first time he was actually viewing his son in depth. He heaved Rose over his shoulder, and I put Seppo’s arm around mine as we stumbled back in retreat.
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