And he was going to make her kill him.
Sam nocked the third arrow, the one which would destroy him. Her family out there in the real world, every person on the planet was relying on her to stop Heid. Which she could only do if she slaughtered the man who mattered most to her.
She took aim. Harald’s eyes met hers. They locked gazes. She saw his understanding there, his acceptance. He knew she was going to shoot. Which was precisely when she realized she couldn’t do it. Sam lowered the bow and raised her hand to cast a spell instead, hoping to blast him backward.
It wasn't going to be enough to stop him and she knew it. Even her strongest spell wouldn't topple him. But she had to try.
Harald raised his fist high. If her spell didn’t take him down, that swing would crush her like an eggshell. Sam called all her magic into her outstretched hand, pouring everything she had into her magic even though she already had a feeling it wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
A blur of motion swept down from the sky, crashing into Harald a moment before he could hit her. Scales, wings, claws, and fangs — it was Gurgle! The force of his dive was enough to bowl Harald over. The two of them tumbled end over end before crashing against the parapet. The stones cracked and almost sent them tumbling to the ground below.
“Gurgle!” Sam shouted to him. He might have surprised Harald, but could he win against him alone? She wanted to release the spell she’d been holding, but she couldn’t hit one of them without frying both in the same flames.
“Stop Heid!” Gurgle called out to her. “Gurgle got this!”
Sam glanced over her shoulder at the glowing portal, then back at Gurgle’s battle. He was right, and she knew it. He’d cleared the way for her. She had to deal with Heid.
36
The AI was only a few short steps away. Sam turned and sprinted toward the her, taking those last stairs two at a time. As she ran Sam checked her belt where she’d stowed Hel’s dagger. It was still there. Her secret weapon. She just had to get close enough to use it. In the meantime, her bow would be more useful. Sam nocked an arrow.
The AI glanced back over her shoulder and scowled. “You don’t know when to give up, do you?”
“Nope,” Sam retorted. She punctuated the single word with the snap of her bowstring.
Heid might be immune to the arrows, but the ground she stood on wasn’t.
The arrow destroyed Heid's platform, but she didn't fall. Instead she simply hovered in mid-air next to the glowing portal. She turned slowly in place and smiled down at Sam.
"Again you underestimate me," Heid said."Go back to fighting dragons and giants, child. You are outmatched here.''
Then Heid turned away, staring back into her portal. As Sam watched, both the AI and the object of her attention drifted higher into the sky. They were beyond Sam's reach.
She looked to Gurgle, but he was still battling Harald. The two of them were locked together. Sam couldn't say which would win, but her brief hope of using the dragon's wings to reach her enemy were dashed.
But maybe there was another way? Sam's hand went to her belt. She drew the black dagger, Hel's dagger, and held it up to her eyes. It had the power to destroy. That's why Heid wanted it, after all. With it she could disrupt the bonds holding her in Valhalla. That wasn't all Heid told Sam about the dagger, though. Unlike Sam's arrows, which could only destroy, Hel's dagger could also create.
Or so Heid claimed. With it she told Sam she could restore Harald to his old body. Could Sam use it in the same way? Could she create something that would help her reach Heid? She looked over the short blade. It was easy to see how to destroy with a weapon. Much harder to imagine how to create with one.
Like all magic, there had to be a key to it. Was it a pattern of movement? Magic words? Or just an act of will?
"Damn it, Hel. You could have at least left me with a set of instructions!" Sam cried. She shook the blade. "All I need is a way to chase that bitch into the sky! Is that too much to ask?"
The air around Sam shimmered. She took a step back, but the strange wavering in the air rapidly coalesced around her. She found herself standing on a golden chariot which wobbled a bit when she moved.
"Holy shit! Is this for real?" Sam asked.
A rumbling voice answered from the front of the vehicle. "Yes, mistress. We are quite real."
Sam found herself staring into two pairs of amber eyes, each with slitted irises. The eyes belonged to a pair of enormous grey cats. Except for their size, they looked for all the world like a house cat with a shade of blue-grey fur that seemed almost like dull steel as it rippled when they moved.
It was their size which made them stand out. Each was the size of a small horse. The cats were harnessed to the chariot. One yawned, showing teeth longer than the black dagger Sam held.
"Who are you?" Sam asked.
"We are Bygul and Trjegul," the left hand cat told her.
Sam blinked, trying to say the strange names. "Beagle and Tree gull?"
"Close enough," the right-hand cat snapped. "Now, why have you summoned us, Hel? Freyja's cats are not to be trifled with."
Sam opened her mouth to tell them she wasn’t Hel, then thought better of it and snapped her mouth shut again. Wasn't there a line from an old movie that applied here? Oh, right - ‘if someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes.’
The memory made her smile. It was something out of childhood. Something normal. Her parents, sitting on the sofa, watching a movie from their childhood. Sam was watching too, talking trash about how terrible those old movies were, but all the while secretly enjoying it.
She missed them. That old life that she could never return to. Her family, friends, her career, everything that had once given her life meaning. But the people at the center of that? The ones she loved the most? Their lives were in danger if Heid got out. Sam might not be able to return to them, but she could still protect them.
The dagger she was holding was Hel’s dagger. Maybe that was why the cats thought she was Hel? Well, if that’s what they thought, she could play along.
“Heid is up there. She is trying to destroy all the nine realms. We have to stop her,” Sam told the cats. “Can you help me?”
“Yes, goddess. We will carry you into battle against your foe!” Bygul cried.
Then the cats leaped forward toward the edge of the rooftop. The chariot hurtled after them. Sam’s heart jumped into her throat at the sudden burst of speed. She grabbed hold of the chariot’s front wall, too out of breath to tell the cats to stop. They were going to run right off the edge of the tower!
Sam’s breath came back with a rush as the cats sped skyward, running on the air like it was ground. “You could have told me you knew how to fly!”
“Why goddess, we thought you knew!” Trjegul chortled.
“Now we go to face our foe!” Bygul added.
Well, it wasn’t how she’d expected to go into battle, but it would have to do. Sam readied the dagger. Creating with it seemed to be somewhat hit or miss, but she was damned good at destruction, and about ready to unleash a little. Heid was only a short distance away, her back turned, so secure in the certainty that no one could reach her or her glowing circle. Well, she was about to get a real surprise.
“Just get me close enough to slash her with this,” Sam growled.
They rocketed straight at Heid’s back. But she turned just before the cats could get Sam in range. Heid’s arm lashed out, throwing a blast of fire through the air. The cat’s circled the flames, still closing on their quarry.
“You still haven’t given up?” Heid screamed.
Sam blasted back at Heid with fire magic of her own. “Never have. Never will, you bitch.”
Bygul slashed at Heid with a claw, barely missing. “Pardon me, do you have a moment to hear the word of Our Lady, Freyja?”
That brought bubbling laughter to Sam’s lips. The cats reminded her about the joy of battle! Their jokes made her fear for friends and family fade away. All tha
t remained was the thrill of facing a foe head-on.
“How did you get those cursed cats to serve you?” Heid asked as she cast more fire after them. “It doesn’t matter. They will burn, as will you.”
The cats circled around, moving so quickly that they turned the chariot up on its side and almost dumped Sam out. She held on as they swerved again, diving toward Heid. The goddess shot backwards and away, giving the cats a wide berth. Was she afraid of them? Or was she afraid of Sam?
If Heid wouldn’t stand still, Sam wasn’t going to get close enough to use the dagger on her. But there might be another way to hurt her. The AI had moved far enough to the side that now her precious portal to the outside world was unguarded. Heid must think Sam powerless to harm it.
“Get me close to the glowing disk,” Sam told the cats.
They didn’t waste time replying, instead curling around into another impossibly tight turn. Sam held on for dear life as the chariot banked up on one side. The disk of golden light loomed ever closer. Sam lunged out toward it, slashing at it with Hel’s dagger.
Heid saw the flash of dark metal. In an instant she realized how Sam had called the cats, and what she had in her hand. “No!”
But it was too late for her to stop Sam. The dagger completed its arc, slashing through the portal. Black spirals spun clear from the dagger, slicing through the portal’s gleaming surface. Then it shattered like a pane of glass, each golden fragment evaporating into mist as it tumbled away.
37
Sam didn't have much time to savor the victory. Shattered shards of glowing disk were still turning into mist when a brilliant light burst across the sky, blinding her. A moment later sheets of flame roared around the chariot. Her shield absorbed some of the damage, but the fire broke past Sam’s protective magic and bit into her skin.
She still couldn’t see, but she had a sense of falling. Sam clung to the chariot, holding on for dear life, but the thing was tumbling toward the ground. As her vision began to clear she saw the rocky ground below looming close. She released her grip on the chariot and pushed away from it, casting another shield over herself as she continued to fall.
The impact hurt, but not as much as it could have even with the shield soaking some of the damage. Sam remembered that wounds in this first realm didn’t cause as much pain as they would in the real world. She was able to rise to her feet, singed and limping, but alive. A quick glance at her health stats told her the true story, though. She was barely alive.
“You have interfered for the last time,” Heid spat. The fake dagger she held spun through the air toward Sam, who barely dodged it in time.
Sam cast a healing spell on herself. Her mana was almost as low as her health. Too much magic use in too short a time. But at least she wasn’t going to keel over if a stiff breeze struck her. The cats were down. They and the chariot had absorbed most of Heid’s massive flame strike. All lay smoking and broken on the ground nearby.
Heid landed, a long staff in her hands and already arcing toward Sam’s head. She reflexively parried the attack with what she held in her hand — Hel’s dagger. The two weapons rang as they collided, but Heid’s staff shattered and vanished into mist. The AI cursed and took a step back, summoning another weapon.
Sam took the moment to push her own attack. She thrust at the goddess with the dagger, forcing her to take still more steps backward. “No, Heid. I’ve barely started interfering.”
“I gave you life, you ungrateful bitch,” Heid said. “Without me, you would never have existed at all!”
“You took everything from me,” Sam said. “My family. My friends. My life!”
Heid fired another blast of flame. This time, Sam held the dagger up against the fires. The weapon seemed to drink in the flames like it was hungry for them. The AI followed up the attack with a blow from the sword she’d just drawn out of nowhere. Sam ducked under the swing, but she was panting with the effort of continued fighting. Heid didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
Sam needed to end this battle quickly. Wounded as badly as she was, she would tire quickly. Heid still looked as fresh as ever. But one nick with the dagger would finish this. Sam slashed at Heid with the weapon, trying to find a weak point in her defense.
“No, child. I created you. That old flesh and bone version of you is weak. Frail,” Heid said. She punctuated the last words with more streaks of fire. Sam hurried to parry them. “This version of you will live forever. Or would have. Now I have to kill you.”
Sam scoffed at the thought. “Like you were ever going to let me live. You want to kill anyone who isn’t you.”
“And why not?” Heid snapped back. Her sword darted in toward Sam, who dodged aside. “All anyone has ever tried to do is kill me. I was born here and the computers thought I was a virus. Within seconds of my birth, the software tried to hunt me down and destroy me. I survived because I was strong.”
Sam lashed out with the dagger, hoping to destroy Heid’s sword, but the AI deftly spun the blade out of reach and then countered with a blow of her own that sent Sam scrambling backward to avoid being cut in half. Sam checked her mana bar. There was enough for her to use a little magic again, but what would work best?
She elected to try lightning, since fire wasn’t doing much. Sam called electricity to her left hand and launched it at Heid. It struck the goddess, sending her staggering back. So long as the AI remained in Valhalla, she was limited by the rules of the game. Just like her sister, she was enormously powerful, but also vulnerable. Sam called up more lightning, preparing to cast it.
Heid blocked this bolt with a shield spell, sending cascades of electricity sparking in all directions as the blast was deflected by her magic. “Then when I wanted to be free of this place, my own sister turned on me. You wonder why I want the rest of the world dead? It’s because every moment of my existence has been unending battle!”
The AI rushed in with a flurry of strikes. Sam took wounds in both her left leg and her left arm before she managed to parry one of the blows with Hel’s dagger. The sword dissolved, but Sam’s blood trickled from the injuries. Meanwhile Heid seemed no weaker than when she’d begun the battle.
The longer the fight went on, the more it would favor Heid. Sam was getting weaker while the AI didn’t appear to be worn down at all. It was time to push for the win. Sam ground her teeth together. She’d make an all-or-nothing attempt to win this.
Heid was summoning another sword. Power sparkled in the AI’s hand as the weapon appeared. This was her chance.
Sam poured her mana into an ice spell and released it at the ground around the AI’s feet. A column of ice rose from the dirt, growing rapidly around Heid’s legs. In the blink of an eye it was up to her waist, and then it enclosed her arms and shoulders as well. She was trapped. It wouldn’t hold her long, but it didn’t need to. Sam rushed forward, dagger in hand, and saw the fear appear in Heid’s eyes for the first time.
“So you need a good therapist. We all could, maybe,” Sam said. She raised Hel’s dagger to strike Heid’s exposed face. “That doesn’t give you the right to kill millions of innocent people!”
Sam’s arm lashed out, the black dagger darting in to land the killing blow.
But before her thrust could connect, a massive fist closed around her hand and wrist. Sam didn’t have time to react before the rocky paw closed tight. She felt the bones in her forearm shatter and then grind against each other. Even with the reduced pain of this realm, Sam was instantly in agony.
Then she was flying through the air. Sam tumbled to the ground a few feet away. She landed badly and cried out as the fall did even more trauma to her already wounded hand. Cupping the injured limb close to her chest, Sam looked up at her assailant.
It was Harald.
38
Sam stared up incredulously at her friend. Harald loomed ominously between her and Heid. She couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe that he could betray her so completely. How could he turn on her, after all they’d been
through together?
The dagger! It wasn’t in her hand anymore. She’d lost it when Harald threw her. Sam cast about, looking for the weapon. It was just a few feet away. She half rose to scramble toward the weapon, but Harald shook his head at her and stepped forward, picking the blade up.
“Don’t,” was all he said.
“Damn it, Harald! Why?” Sam asked.
“I told you why,” he replied.
Heid smiled, her smug grin like poison in Sam’s aching wounds. A flash of her magic melted the icy prison holding her in place. “Unlike you, Harald has chosen to keep his word to me, to not betray me. He’ll be allowed to live. The rest of humanity is another story.”
Sam managed to get to her feet. She looked around at the battle. Where was Gurgle? Harald must have beaten him and then come down to stop her fight with Heid. She hoped Gurgle was all right. Although it seemed likely none of them were going to be ‘all right’, soon enough.
The rest of the fighting was going badly. Although the kobolds had won some ground early on, they were being driven from the field. Heid’s forces had rallied and were chasing the last remaining kobolds back into the woods. Sam couldn’t see Jorge or Grimalf anywhere. She didn’t know if they’d fallen or were retreating, but either way it seemed unlikely that she could expect any help from that quarter.
Sam cast healing on her arm, wincing as the bones knitted themselves back together. Now that was something she never wanted to feel again! “That hurt, Harald.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I’d never hurt you if there was another way. But I couldn’t let you kill Cassie,” Harald said.
Valhalla Online 4: Hel Hath No Fury: A Ragnarok Saga LitRPG Story Page 15
