Goblin King

by Kara Barbieri

  Back in the burrow, someone checked on Diaval, whose state had stayed the same. We laid Rose next to her as they were both unconscious and maybe could share warmth with each other. Seppo fought his way to Rose’s other side before he passed out as well.

  My own body ached so badly, it was all I could do to lay a fur on the ground so I wasn’t sleeping on the ice before I fell over and started to quiver. My eyelids fought to stay open despite feeling like someone had tied sandbags to them. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop shaking. The battle had sapped energy from me even without serious wounds.

  Lydian peered out of the burrow, looking for what, I didn’t know. He closed his eyes and sighed in defeat before climbing back into the burrow. I made it a point to be as far away on the opposite side as possible from him. The entire trip I’d had a buffer between us with my other friends and comrades, and now I was alone with the goblin who not only admitted to torturing me due to his wrongful interpretation of a vision, but stated without any doubt or waver in his voice that he would do it again if he had to. I wouldn’t lie about how uncomfortable that made me, but I had to remember that he couldn’t do anything now. If anything, I was more afraid for my friends than Lydian’s shade.

  But the fear for them didn’t have time to penetrate my mind fully as the ground started to rumble again, the little ice chunks and rocks shaking madly. The scent of something burning filled the air, and for a moment, all noise stopped from the tiniest of insects to the largest of monsters.

  Fjalar cried out from his domain, just once, but once was enough to have the entire ground shake, to burn the air around us, and to take away our hearing, leaving us with ears ringing and bleeding from the loud shrillness of it all. It was like a combination of all the worst sounds—nails on a chalkboard, the shriek of a dying sow, the dying moans of the men on the shore of corpses, the battle cries of a team of goblin raiders as they tore about my home, the first time Lydian truly snarled when I was his captive, the anguished cries of Soren as his eye was ripped from his face—all of that and much, much more. All there was and all there had been was this sound, this deathly, shrill sound that shook the ground and broke the world around it.

  When it stopped, all I could do was lie there in shock; from across the burrow, Lydian was also in the same pose.

  “Two more cries,” he murmured to himself. “One for the dead, one for the chained, and one for the sleeping.”

  But as our ears stopped ringing and began to pick up actual sound again, there was no second or third cry. We still had a chance to stop Fimbulwinter … except, did we really? Four out of six of us were majorly injured, and Lydian and I couldn’t kill it alone.

  The sandbags pulling on my eyelids finally did the trick and my eyes closed. But instead of blackness, there was a white piercing light. It whispered to me as I fell into unconsciousness and told me what to do. My last thought before I drifted into sleep was if it would hurt very much to be eaten alive.

  22

  ODIN’S OTHER EYE

  IT WAS A feeling I had deep down inside of me. Not like the way the stag’s abilities or my connection to Soren felt. It was 100 percent my own—not tainted or touched by anything. It frightened me, but it also hardened the resolve around me. That I didn’t need the stag’s power or any magic or weapons to do this.

  I didn’t know why it was that way, just that I did, and I knew to trust it.

  I left the burrow early, before the dawn’s light began to brighten the sky. My only weapons were my bow and one arrow, the tip soaked in flammable fabric that I managed to find. A piece of flint and steel. Other than this, I was going in empty.

  Praying to myself that my intuition was true, I stroked the stone until it sparked and until that spark caught the edge of the flammable fabric and burst into flames. Standing, I notched the arrow and with one more silent thought—please see this, please come to me—I let the arrow soar through the sky like a comet, farther and farther away until I could no longer see its light.

  Heading to the mouth of the cave of Fjalar, I found a safe spot to sit and wait until morning light came. For the moment when the gray sky turned pink with dawn just as Soren liked.

  I wouldn’t risk any more friends’ (and enemies’) lives during this fight. A hardened ball of resolve was in my stomach. Somehow I knew the way we approached it—all of us together—was wrong. There was some sort of spiritual residue I couldn’t pin down that came from Fjalar, and if I was right about my feelings, if I could trust them, this would work.

  It had to. There were no other options.

  I breathed in and out. Calm, like Diaval had taught me. Clearing my mind of all my fear and anxiety, all my doubts and worries, until the calmness flowed through my body like clear water, washing away everything. I knew what I had to do, and for once, neither doubt nor fear lingered with my knowledge, only surety and focus.

  The sky began to turn a pale gray ever so slowly, and with each dark shade that faded into brighter ones, my stomach clenched with doubt. I forced myself to swallow it down and go back to my breathing. Even if my gut feeling was wrong, this was still how I chose to go out.

  Fingering a piece of Diaval’s ritual chalk, I began to draw a large circle around the area. From as far as behind the boulders near the burrow the others rested in and as close to Fjalar’s lair as I dared without getting close enough so that the rooster itself couldn’t step into the circle. My hand drew like it wasn’t a part of my own body. Something inside me filled me up as I took each symbol and each line and chanted words unfamiliar to me. A brilliant type of floating feeling in my body seeped out with every type of symbol I drew. Magic leaked out of me and coated the symbols with invisible color and invisible power and something else that I couldn’t grasp yet.

  When I finished drawing and chanting, I went back by the boulders to wait. The sun was beginning to rise, and for the first time in Niflheim, it looked like a clear, non-misty day. Coincidence or an omen? I hoped for the latter but steeled myself for it to be the former.

  But then he came. Walking out of the dissipating mist with a slight limp but still holding himself up with no need for anyone’s help. He didn’t stumble or veer off in a random direction or snake-like line, but walked straight toward me until I was staring at him, drinking in his features since I’d seen him last.

  Much was the same. Soren’s hair was still short and braided across his scalp. His skin was still the pale blue-gray color of the sky right before the dawn truly hit, and his eye was still lilac. But he stood with confidence once more, and the bandage over his eye had gone, leaving a clean if not new and pink scar across his permanently closed eyelid.

  He took a long breath before speaking. “Hi.”

  I slapped him across the face as a response.

  “Yeah, I guess I deserved that.”

  “Do you know how upset you made me?” I whisper-shouted, trying to keep my voice down not to wake Fjalar but also unable to contain all my rage.

  “I’m going to assume a lot,” he said hesitantly.

  “A lot!” It was getting hard to keep my voice from rising as it collected all the emotion and heartache I’d suffered the past two days. “Cutting off contact, disappearing in the middle of the night. I thought you left us, left me, I thought you were going to kill yourself from exposure. And now you see my flaming arrow, and you come back like everything is fine? Explain yourself.”

  Soren bowed his head. “Something happened to me when the Nidhogg ripped my eye out. I don’t know if it was venom or because of where we were or what, but I … It felt like this thing wiggling in my brain. A shadow I couldn’t get away from.” He clenched his hands and the hard muscles in his arms stood out. “And you’re right. I felt sorry for myself. I felt like I was no longer worthy of anything. I grew up mastering swords and daggers, and while I’m not the archer you are, I could do it fine too. I grew up being told that was my worth, my strength. And then suddenly, I couldn’t wield any weapon or even walk straight, and the whispers tha
t slithered around in my head got darker and darker.”

  He sat and I sat beside him, backs against the boulders. “They told me to hurt you, Janneke. They told me I needed to kill you in order to get my strength back, and the worst part is some primal part of me craved strength at whatever the cost, and the moment I entertained it for even half a second, I knew I needed to leave. I couldn’t bear to say what was happening to me.”

  Some of the fire that filled my body burned away as I clasped his hands. “You would never hurt me. I know that more than anything else in the world. You should have told me about it, told one of us.”

  Soren made a pained sound. “I was going to, but then…” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but I got jealous. I was in the back of the line needing Seppo and Rose to help support me, and meanwhile you were by Lydian’s side, and I know it didn’t mean anything. I know the pain he caused you. But that vicious little voice kept pushing the idea further and further to the surface.”

  Maybe some part of me should’ve felt offended or disgusted by that insinuation. But if Soren was right about the voice inside his head and knowing it was wrong but not being able to change his thoughts no matter how he tried, I could bring myself to a cold understanding.

  “And so you left?” I asked.

  “I left. I felt like I had to. Something was lingering in my gut, there were the worms in my head, and I was useless. It was like watching myself slowly decay. So, I got up and followed the urge to walk.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “Yggdrasil,” he said. “I don’t know what or who exactly was leading me there, but that’s where I arrived and then passed out on the roots and bark, and when I woke, my mind was clear again, my scar stopped hurting, and I felt amazingly stupid for everything I did.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Good, you should feel that way.” I looked at the sky to check the time. There was some gray among the red light of dawn, so there was still time to talk, but as soon as the red came, I would need to begin my plan.

  My heart ached at the same time that my blood still boiled over Soren’s choices and his inability to communicate. I loved him, but …

  “Soren, I want you to know I love you. I’m terribly mad at you. I wish you could communicate better, and I wish you had more faith in me.” I took a breath. “But I do still love you. And as the stag to Erlking, I trust you. But as Janneke to Soren, I need you to give me my space to get over this. I don’t want you trying to convince me or beg for forgiveness. I’ll come around. But I need to regrow my trust in you, on a personal level.”

  He nodded, eye looking down at his feet. “That makes sense.”

  The sky was now streaked with red, and I needed to get a move on. “Come on, I need you to help me move everyone.” I began walking to the burrow with Soren catching up behind me.

  “Wait, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  I served him a glare. “We tried to fight Fjalar yesterday. I’m the only one still conscious. I don’t think anyone died, but Diaval won’t wake up, Rose got smashed into rocks, Seppo nearly killed himself with his magic, and Lydian didn’t wake up this morning either.”

  Soren ran a hand across the horrified expression on his face. “That’s my fault too, then.”

  “I’ll give you fifty-fifty. We chose to fight. But having you would’ve made a difference. It still wouldn’t have worked, but it would have made a difference.” I ducked into the burrow and found the four others still sleeping. One by one, I wriggled their bodies out from their curled-up positions and managed to get them to Soren, who dragged them out of the burrow completely.

  “I need you to set them inside the circle I created. Doesn’t have to be super deep in. Make sure they’re far enough away from the mouth of the cave but set them inside and all together.”

  He nodded, and with more gentleness than I’d ever seen from him before, he cradled Seppo’s body as he turned away.

  Why is everyone so much bigger than me, I thought as I began to work on Rosamund with gentle fingers, terrified of breaking anything after he got slammed into the rocks. Soren was there to take his body, and I went down next to Lydian, managing to pull him out with a little less gentle of a grip because out of the four of them, he was easily the least injured.

  My eyes got wet when I turned to Diaval. She lay still with only the faint rise and fall of her chest to indicate she was still alive. Her wound had grown infected again, and I prayed Tanya would be able to do something when I saw the small streaks of red on her skin, emerging from her wound.

  She didn’t struggle or cry out when I grabbed her and dragged her outside as best I could without bothering her leg, but that didn’t make me feel any better. It meant she was too far gone to even feel the pain in her own body.

  With Soren’s help, we gently laid her beside the others. He stood in front of the four bodies and murmured something to them, but I was too far away to hear. It was showtime.

  “Come on, we need to get ready.”

  “Where are the weapons?” Soren inquired.

  “Worthless and we’re not using them.” I must’ve sounded completely out of my wits, but I continued on anyway. “You know how you had a feeling? Well, I’ve been dealing with my own, and it finally fixed itself when the cut off of the contact between the stag and the Erlking happened.” I swept my foot across the icy ground and stared at the colored lines leading every which direction on the ice. “I can see it now. I think I understood after the first fight. There are only two people combined who can stop the end of the world, and those two are us. That thing”—I pointed to Fjalar’s cave—“won’t fall to weapons. It’ll fall to us. If we can combine our power and unite, we can do it.”

  His brows furrowed in confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean, but I trust you on this.”

  “Good,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the reddening sky. It was almost time. I checked everyone once again. Everyone was inside the circle, the chalk marks hadn’t been scratched or wiped away, and in a few seconds, we would have to fight.

  Now, I stood in front of the entrance with Soren a few paces behind me, took a deep breath, and let out a scream.

  The winds blew from the force of the sound, and the clouds of dust and ice and snow made the once-clear air nearly impossible to see through. Soren jolted in surprise next to me but did nothing as the unhuman scream came out of my mouth. I dropped to my knees, feeling my vocal cords strain as I stretched out my arms.

  The ground shook with the arrival of Fjalar, but he was invisible in the mist; though from behind me, Soren swore under his breath at the sight of the liminal monster.

  My scream continued, pushing back the animal until I felt the next step of my plan come and bury itself bone-deep inside of me. I stood and dropped my head until the crown faced the ground, and I thought of that wall inside my body and the thin ice of the gauntlet, and like an actual stag, something inside me crashed through the wall and continued to run through my body. My veins, my muscles, my skin, every part of me was filled with a fiery sensation—not painful—as the power danced around my body, and as stag me and human me merged together in a beautiful storm of ice and fire.

  I took a step up into the air, and it formed like a step from the ice under my feet. Turning, I reached a hand to Soren, who while thoroughly terrified—I knew his every thought and emotion now, no need to reach, no need to dig—accepted my hand as I pulled him up with me.

  The inferno of ice that surrounded my body quickly climbed across our linked hands and circled his body too, his remaining eye turning the color of frost, and the scar where his eye should’ve been shone in the same bright color.

  When I spoke, the wind spoke with me, and my voice boomed over the flat icy plain that was Niflheim.

  “I am ash and I am elm,” my voice boomed over the wind. “I am Frigga and Freya, Skadi and Gefion, Idun and Sif. I am Sigyn, Eir, Fulla, Gna, and Hlin. I am Ilmr and I am Hel. Every goddess throughout time, named and unnamed, flo
ws through me. Everything that is or ever has been is in me. I know without knowing. I see without seeing. I am the beginning and the end and the time in between.” My words lashed out at Fjalar like the swing of a sword, and the rooster shrieked in pain as it bled.

  Soren clutched my hand and said, “I am the hunter. I am death. I am the brutality of nature at its fiercest and its protector at its weakest. Through me flows the blood of the Ancient One, the first Erlking, and through blood and sweat, I claimed the throne and I will rule. I am Odin’s Other Eye and to slay you is my destiny.”

  Another shot of icy fire hit the bird, and it stumbled, bleeding from two very deep cuts in its chest.

  The thing inside of me that told me to speak, gave me and Soren the words to say, pressed on.

  “I am life, I am the cycle, and I forbid you from my realms,” I shouted. The swirling of dust, ice, snow, and mist made it almost impossible to see what was happening to our enemy, but I could feel it in my very bones as Soren continued the chant.

  “I am death. I am the pile of bones and the skeleton with a crown, and I will drag you down to your end,” Soren snarled.

  “We are one,” we said together. “We are many. Bow to us and perish.”

  The ground started to rumble again as Fjalar gave out another deafening cry—not one of its magical cries—a cry of pain and agony as the world mist swirled around it closer and closer, the ice cutting deeper and deeper, until the liminal creature was no more.

  I fell to the ground, landing on my knees. The earth was still shaking and a crevice was cracking open the ice where the cave and Fjalar had stood. The cave crashed into the next world, the fires of Muspellheim and the hot lava burned underneath me, rising up from the ice. I scrambled back from the lava as quick as I could, only for the plate of ice I was on to break. But before I could plunge into the heat below, Soren had me by the hand and pulled me to safety.