No blood this time, no grit beneath my blade.
No sound.
One hersir throws down his torch. He plows through Freya, and me. He runs back the way we came and then, if his feral shrieks are any indication, in wild circles beyond the torch’s glow. Shadows froth at the edges of the pool of light, converge on him.
Silence. No beating footsteps, no screams.
Heijl and Frigga. This is taking too long, and we’re losing men we need to fight the artaois. “We need to move. Faster. Run. Now!”
We sound like thunder running over the mounds, but I don’t miss an undernote, a musical trickle like rain on a stone rooftop.
The tidal channels have begun to fill.
Another hersir tumbles into the water. No one slows for him. I don’t even try for a swing at the demon. We’re too caught up escaping our grave.
Once-still tide pools slosh against the mounds. Freya’s white downy cape brushes water where grit was seconds before. Land of any sort begins to thin, and the ice is at least the height of two men above our heads. We’re beyond the shallows.
Fear gives me strength, and I run faster, Freya almost floating at my side. I will not die down here, not after everything I’ve been through. Won’t be collected at high tide.
I’m so fucking relieved to see a shaft of unfiltered moonlight ahead. We reach the shelf’s edge, and everyone skids to a stop with a splash of water that’s halfway up the toe of my boots.
They stop, and hover.
“Up. You, on his shoulders!” No one hersir is really smaller than another, so I choose at random as they’re not doing a fucking thing but waiting to be killed.
One scrambles over the other, and they heave. A surge of water hits me at the ankles, leaving foam on my boots. “Not fast enough!”
Genrig climbs the last hersir. I boost him, and then Freya. She’s oddly light for being equal to my height.
The next wave washes foam from my boots, wetting me halfway to the knees.
A hand grips my ankle and yanks.
I slip, go down.
Darkness. The water is freezing, steals the breath from my lungs. I slash, know more of them are coming, blind in the inky water. I’m rewarded by a thick crunch as my blade severs something, but oddly, the pressure doesn’t release from my leg.
“Lir!” It echoes from above, muted. I brace my feet on the ice and leap, my jump augmented by Kumiko, and I shoot upward, clearing the water with a gasp.
Stretching arms pluck me from the air, pull me upward even as demons surge below, their fingers brushing my boots.
Genrig and a hersir haul me onto the ice.
Freya’s glow suffuses me, wringing the cold from me, and its warmth evaporates chill water from my clothes that would kill me as surely as the creatures below.
The demon’s hand still grips my leg, its wound jagged, trailing bright blue blood into the snow. When Freya’s healing washes over it, the fingers spasms. The blood flow stops. The hand falls from my ankle and rolls into the water.
I trade a glance with Freya. These people are superstitious and in possession of at least one powerful artifact. I shake my head, a small movement, and Freya nods in agreement.
“Thank you for kicking that away.”
She forces a smile, face drawn. “Only safe thing to do.”
The hersir crouch and try to rest. In minutes this shelf will be submerged, at least a little. Wet and frigid-stiff don’t sound like a combination for defeating the artaois.
“The den is somewhere in those hills.” Genrig points to a low series of glacial mounds forming part of the coastline.
“Then go!”
The tide surges without warning, an icy geyser that shoots through each gap, raining freezing spray. We can’t outrun it. The water catches our retreat like a hand, smacking us toward the hills faster than we could go on our own. But we’re sodden with winter seawater and the wind howls softly out here beyond the fjord’s shelter.
We slide across the open plane like dice, tumbling onto a snow crusted ridge where the water recedes.
Freya’s lips stutter around clouds of breath, but even on her knees she’s already gone to work with her staff, undoing the deadly effects of our drench. She heals me last, and as steam billows from my furs it feels like I’m drying from the inside out.
She finishes. Her staff stone dims, and she slumps.
“Freya!” She’s warm in my arms, but she’s limp.
“I’m fine.” Her words are quiet, drawn, and she can see by my face that I don’t believe her “Just...I have to rest before we go on.”
“Is there somewhere we can lay low for a few minutes?” I ask Genrig.
He nods to a low spot behind the rise at our backs.
Scooping Freya up, I follow the men.
Small ice caves have been bored into the glacial shelf, each large enough for three or four people. The hersir shuffle into one of them, packing tight for warmth, while I carry Freya into the darkness a few entrances down.
I lay her on the floor, in the deep shadows at the back of our cave. It doesn’t feel cold to me, but she shivers when I pull her back against my chest. Rooting with one hand over my shoulder, I manage into my pack. Wool blanket.
“I’m not cold,” she stutters in protest. “Just tired.”
“Just be tended to and stop complaining.” I try to cover my worry, because I’ve never seen her like this, not even during our fight with Helreginn.
“I’m frightened,” she admits to the darkness. “There is something at work, something in those men. When I started to heal, it felt like my magic was sucked into a void. Like it could have been stripped from me completely. I’m not a witch or an arcanist. I’m made of magic.” She shudders harder. “Healing them when we fight the artaois…”
“We’ll sort it out.” I have no idea how. The hersir aren’t expendable, but Freya isn’t a trick or an object. If it comes down to a choice...
I wrap her tighter against me. Her shivering simmers to an intermittent tremble. “Feeling better?”
“Mmm.” She burrows closer. “Lir? Be so careful from here on.”
“Meaning?”
“If the artaois is the artifact, and it must be...This place is corrupted, and she might be, too. Genrig is correct; it’s the last snowbear in this realm and maybe all the realms.” Her voice breaks when she says this. “You have to fight her, find a way to save her, but if you can’t, have to slaughter her...maybe you can still defeat the temple.”
I hear the but in her thoughts as plainly as if she’d spoken it. “This is about more than winning. There’s no way it could be less now. We’re allies, all of us, until the end. I won’t leave without you. Any of you.”
“Such a curious mortal,” Freya breathes, words thick. She sounds sleepy, almost lazy, but her breathing is rapid, her back pressing against me. She slips an arm under the blanket and works a hand between our bodies.
It takes a second to comprehend she’s pulled up her clothes. Freya grinds her bare ass against my hips. My body’s response is almost violent. I can’t get my laces open fast enough. In the cold damp air beneath the blanket I can feel the heat of her pussy.
Freya raises her ass; her lips slick wet along my shaft. There’s no preamble, no foreplay. This is pure need. We have only moments. I bury inside her without trying, my shaft diving to the root. Our boots tangle, and Freya hooks my ankle with her foot. She holds me hard against her with a leg wrapped over my thigh. We hurry, not rough, but urgent.
Her body is taut beneath her robe, straining everywhere my hand touches. I reach around her, my finger finding her clit, and I press it down against my thrusting shaft. She gasps, but in the brittle cold the hersir would hear anything louder, so her moans die low in her throat.
The position is ecstasy, her closed legs hugging my cock even when I pull out to the head. I thrust back in, over and over, inexorable, and I know she’s close. I am, too, my cock so tight, so ready, that every push into her velvet pussy mig
ht be the last.
She fucks me with backward thrusts of her ass while I grind her clit with the heel of my hand. We no longer care about the sounds, and her cries echo in the small space. When she cums, it’s different than it’s ever been before; her whole body tenses, and incandescent wings rip from her back, punching me in the chest. I flood inside of her, spasming, her name on my lips as her wings dissipate, leaving me still struggling to breathe while I clutch her hips, my final pump emptying me.
The spread of her legs lets some dribble out, down my shaft and onto our thighs. Freya groans softly and grinds in our wetness before slipping free. She rolls over, kisses me, and something about it is so simple, so endearing, after what we’ve just done.
Standing, she reaches back and snaps down her robes, then freezes.
“Is something wrong?” She sorted her clothes with so much force that I’m sure she’s upset.
Freya throws out an arm and grabs her staff. She spins it, so fast that it’s a disc of white in the dark cave. “What...?” she seems almost confused.
I laugh. I’ve already experienced what she’s just discovering. “Do you feel faster?”
“Lir.” She tosses the staff up, where it almost impacts the roof of the cave, before catching it and snapping it to the floor with a resounding crack.
I lean into her, kiss the crook of her neck. Better here, too?
Don’t do that. A mortal’s thoughts are like a fly buzzing. She winces against me. “No offense.”
None taken. I’m far too preoccupied with what coupling has done. “So, I can increase my strengths and give them to each of you?”
She steps away, looking tough and luminous. “It would seem that way.” Freya’s eyes rake over me. “What else have you got in there?”
The cave smells like sex and cum and the sweet perfume of her skin. I hate that we’re low on time and answers about this realm. Otherwise I’d take her again right now. “As soon as I get anything else, I’ll let you know.”
“I feel better. Much better.” She stretches, cat-like. “We should get going.”
Genrig and the others are still in their hollow when Freya and I slip outside. None of them seem like they’ve heard us, and I’m not surprised. Their voices murmur in concert, one occasionally raising to crush down the rest.
“We’ve made a mistake,” cries one of the hersir.
“No, no! Stay our course. We’re nearly through.” This from Genrig, but the muttering tells me he’s not winning the others over.
“Genrig?” I shout. All talk ceases. He pokes his head from the cave, wild-eyed.
“Freya’s recovered. We can press on.”
He looks relieved, and resigned. “I don’t know the exact location of the artaois den. We’ve wandered the slopes after injuring it with no success. And the other times…” He shudders. “It finds us first.”
Freya and I trade looks. “Not this time,” I promise.
We set out, across the floes, in search of the last snowbear.
I hope that we can save her before she kills us all.
-Bjornberg-
We’ve been lulled by a half hour of nothingness, of white hills and ice unending, of darkness that feels like a blanket.
When she finally comes for us, we’re not ready.
A flash of white fur, rising from the inky water. Coming up so fast that I barely have time to react. One moment, the water next to us is calm, almost too placid, and the next, she’s among us, her roar deafening. Only my new speed saves me, and I throw myself backward, one arm taking Freya with me to the ice, as the bear rushes past. It’s so close her frozen fur scrapes my face.
The hunter behind me isn’t so lucky. The snowbear’s jaws close around his head, razor teeth severing it from his neck, so fast and sharp that his body stands a few moments before falling limp to the ground.
The bear spins to face us as she slides across the ice, the hunter’s head still in her mouth. And Gods, she’s huge. Almost as big as Fenrir, and just as terrifying. Her eyes blaze with such fury that I take a step back, some animal part of me trying to escape her gaze. Her legs and arms are massive, so heavily muscled that they ripple through her fur. Her claws are jagged, black, and half the length of my blade.
With a crack, she closes her jaws. The hunter’s head explodes in her mouth, sending an arc of blood and brain across the snow. She spits the remains out, her eyes never leaving us. He growl is low, from deep in her belly, and coupled with the blood dripping from her muzzle, she’s about the most terrifying fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
“Not hunting us,” Freya whispers.
“What?” I’m backing away, my blades in my hands, keeping the alicorn behind me. The remaining four hunters are next to her, their murmured whispers laced with fear, only too happy to let me stand at the fore.
“She didn’t take his body, didn’t care about the meat. Didn’t steal one of us to take somewhere to consume.” Her voice is quiet, not frightened. “It was murder.”
In that moment, it’s hard to imagine saving her, that she’s not insane. Kumiko’s laugh echoes in my memory, her strength, and that tinge of madness after what she’d been subjected to. What if this artifact is broken, so crazed with rage that she’s too far gone to save?
No. Cocidius wouldn’t have sent me here, wouldn’t have let me go through all this, if there wasn’t a chance. I have to believe that.
And then, she’s moving, hurtling toward us. She closes the distance to our group in an eyeblink, and once again, my reflexes are the only thing that save me. I throw myself backward, taking Freya to the ground. She grunts as she hits the ice, and I flatten. Razor claws pass a finger’s width past my face, then come up, ripping one hunter in half, his life snuffed in a heartbeat. I bring my blade up, far too late, clipping her back paw as she passes overhead. It pierces her skin, but barely, her thick fur blunting most of the force of my blow.
And, I have to admit, I hold back. I don’t want to kill her. Not if she’s an artifact.
I stand, bring my blades up to fight, ready for her next pass, but she’s gone. A long trail of gore and entrails leads to the water at the far end of the ice floe.
As I help Freya up, the smell of piss assaults me, stark in the brisk air. One of the hunters, his axe fallen from rigid fingers, backs away, voice high and thin. “Oh gods, oh gods, spare me!”
“We can spare ourselves! Help me fight!”
“No. You don’t–”
Genrig hisses, lunging forward to shut up the hersir. “Keep your tongue!”
“Give them back their skins! Give back their bodies!” The hersir’s words are one long high-pitched shriek.
There’s no time for this. I look from him to Genrig. “What skins? What bodies?”
Freya zips her staff between them in a threatening line. “The women in the ice, they’re selkies…”
“We harvested the skins and hid them. Men took their turns with the–” The hersir sobs. “The selkies escaped and fled back to the tide. They sent the artaois. They punished us–”
He turns and runs, back toward the village.
He’s dead. “Stop! We have to –” my words die in my throat.
The bear explodes from the water, sliding across the floe. A quick snap of her jaws as she passes, and the hunter falls with a broken scream. She doesn’t stop, her momentum taking her clear across the ice, back into the water.
We rush to the fallen hunter. Freya crouches next to him, examining wounds, as I stand above them, watching. I spin, heart in my throat. Every eddy in the water is her, every ripple a claw. Or the selkies, circling, waiting.
I spare a glance down and wish I hadn’t. The man’s torso is a wreckage of shattered ribs, gore, and pulsing blood. It’s bad, and he’ll be dead in moments. “Can you heal him?”
“I don’t know. His body is shattered and Mordenn’s blood taint... It will drain me.” Freya looks up, and I know what she’s asking. She thinks I’ll need her, before this is done.
And I know I will. What I just saw, the bear’s speed, her viciousness, there’s no way I’m getting out of this without a few new scars. I may be fast, but eventually I have to fight that thing, and Freya’s healing is my secret weapon. If I lose that...
The last hersir looks to me, tears running down his face. “Please,” he croaks. “Please. My brother.”
Gods damn it.
I give her a nod, still rotating in place, watching.
Freya smiles at me, puts her hand on the prone man. The glow begins immediately, glorious, golden, suffusing him.
But something’s wrong. The man’s shattered breaths suddenly become strangled groans, then screams. I look down, wide eyed. His wounds seem to stretch, blacken, and his insides bubble and boil within him. Freya snatches her hands back, eyes wide, as the man convulses on the ground, heels drumming in the snow.
“Freya, what…”
“I don’t know!” She looks to me, and I wrap her, pull her back.
The man’s wounds degrade, and his skin melts. His organs pop, spraying us with gore, and we stumble backward.
And he screams, and screams, and screams, until he dies.
Freya stares. “It...It killed him…”
I shake my head, can’t understand. “It didn’t before, on the ice.”
She shakes her head, still gaping. “Cursed by the god of Death. This is part of his harvest.” She takes another step back, and her hand finds mine. “He will not be denied.”
“Can you still heal me?”
She doesn’t have time to answer. The other hunter flies up from his crouch and turns on us, axe raised. “You killed him!” he shrieks. “My brother! You, you work with the bear!”
“No, wait–”
But he’s coming at us, madness in his eyes, and I have no choice. Kumiko’s gift makes it feel like he’s moving in amber, and I weave around his blade as it comes down, a light touch pushing Freya aside. As he passes, I hit him in the back of the head with the flat of my blade, sending him sprawling into the snow.
He doesn’t get up.
And in that moment, I know that I’ve killed him, anyway. We can’t carry him, and if we leave him, the selkies or the bear will find him.
Temple of Cocidius Page 19
