Princesses of the Ironbound Boxset: Books 1 - 3 (Barbarian Outcast, Barbarian Assassin, Barbarian Alchemist)

by Aaron Crash

  Every race, every culture, every storyteller seemed to have their own version about the origins of the Tree of Life, and the nature of it to the old gods. No wonder the southerners couldn’t decide on who had killed the Vempor Aegel Akkridor.

  “As for the Ironcoats?” Brodor harrumphed. “I’ve talked to ’em. They’re here to keep things as they are. We’ve lived in the Age of Isolation for five hundred years, and they want to see it stay like it is for another five hundred. I must admit, I agree. The gods made us different for a reason. Why muddy the bloodlines through a bunch of unwise screwing?”

  Ymir gave the dwarf a chuckle as if the clansman cared. He did know the Age of Isolation started in the year 5450, with the founding of the Holy Theranus Empire, which, despite its name, was a shadow of the Akkridorian Empire. Like the male birthrate, the ancient empire had withered since the death of the last real vempor, Aegel.

  The clansman then wondered what Brodor did during his Inconvenience. Best not to ponder that too much. He didn’t need the mental image of any dwarf masturbating other than Toriah.

  Brodor patted Ymir’s hand, or tried to. It was more of a hard smack. “Anyway, you’d be smart to take in Tori. Her family is famous all throughout the underground, and rumor has it, her grandfather is an advisor to the thane of the Grand Undergem Stonehold. The Grand Undergem Stonehold is the biggest Morbuskorian city of all! Tori is a descendant of Ordoon Thunderrock regardless. You learn about Ordoon Thunderrock in your history class?”

  “We haven’t,” Ymir said.

  “That’s a stone-damn shame.” The dwarf tugged on his beard. “It’s because Nile Preat doesn’t believe the great thane Ordoon dug tunnels to all the continents on Raxid. There’s a vast highway deep down, and that’s how we had xocalati from Reytah, and mint from Ethra.”

  “Are those tunnels still around?” Ymir asked.

  “Nope,” the dwarf grunted. “It’s the old cliché, lad. Ordoon dug too deep and woke up something, and it ate him. His people and ours had to slam the tunnels closed. Thanes, though, every once in a while, vow to find the hidden entrances and use them again. And all the while, you overtoppers think your ships, riding the waves, will conquer the world. It won’t happen, not as long as the merfolk families are around. Now, I don’t like most of the races, but I hate those fishy bastards the most. They aren’t right. You and I are warm-blooded. Them fish-fuckers have hearts as cold as the dead, I’ll tell you what. I’d rather have a beer with that bad Gruul, Gulnash, than with one of them mermaids.”

  Ymir had read about Gulnash in the Four Roads town crier. The rogue orc was gathering soldiers and causing trouble on the Blood Steppes. Of course, in the crier, the writer was confident the Holy Theranus Empire wouldn’t have any trouble with a few Gruul who had delusions of grandeur. The Empire was ridiculous, and its town crier was downplaying the threat. It was clear that Gulnash was a real problem.

  Brodor paused to brush a big thumb across his bulbous nose.

  Ymir leapt at the chance to talk. “Have you noticed anything strange about the Princept? We were casting simple Flow magic, but I thought I saw a shadow around her.”

  “Della is fine, always fine, but, Ymir, those merfolk are going to be a problem. Not to gossip, but I have several in my class, and I’ve caught them talking. They’re from the same family, and I told Della, speaking of the Princept, it was a bad idea. Those merfolk have tried to take over Vempor’s Cape before, tried to take StormCry as well, and it would be their foothold onto the land. Them fuckers can walk, they can, and they can look like us. But they ain’t us. Let me tell you a little story...”

  And on it went. Brodor wasn’t going to be any help. Ymir would have to unravel the sorcery binding the Princept himself.

  It took a bit, but the clansman worked his way out of the conversation and out of the room. He walked through the mist sweeping from the ocean. Normally on Friday nights, scholars would be getting ready for the evening festivities. Not that night. Everyone would be studying for the Third Exam. The Examiners were already in their rooms in the Imperial Palace, where Ymir would be, hidden away and guarded.

  Ymir planned to have his ax near at all times. Until then, he and his princesses had their own work to do, especially Lillee. She’d already done several practice sketches of the Veil Tear Ring, getting the dimensions right, perfecting the circle, and inscribing the runes. Her skill was apparent. Over the weekend, she’d work on the actual picture, inked on the letter from Arribelle Josen.

  In less than two days, Ymir would have the magic to find out who was threatening him and his princesses. And he would make them pay with their lives. There would be no mercy, no, and he would assassinate the would-be assassins himself. They’d all talked. Jenny, Lillee, and Tori all agreed they should use his spit for the ink.

  He had the Obanathy cantrips to hide the crime scene. It was probably why those spells were in the Scrollery in the first place—they were powerful and could be used for ill. It was amazing that the poet could create such dark magic.

  There was brilliance to the man. Ymir, while reading Obanathy poems, found another one on curses.

  It was a spring wedding, and the groom

  Smiled wide and red, from his throat,

  The sorceress shed not a tear, but wiped,

  The ash from her hand on his coat.

  There was a viciousness to the verse, like a mocking limerick sung by children. Obanathy went on to explain that certain love spells, like the Lover’s Knot, left a mark on you, a bit of ash you couldn’t wipe away but you could easily ignore. That was the nature of curses—too many times you ignored the obvious signs of being so ensorcelled.

  The weekend passed in a flash. Day drew the light from the night, even as the night darkened the day.

  That Sunday night the sky cleared, the first time in weeks, and the stars came out to grace them as the Shieldmaiden moon rose over the eastern horizon at ten o’clock. It would be high enough for them to capture its reflection once they got to the StormLight lighthouse. Octovato had said you needed to be as high as possible. Ymir wasn’t going to be trifling with any towers on the grounds of the college, no, and so he’d reached out to Damnation Sue.

  Ymir rowed the same boat they’d rented before across the sea, staying beyond the breakers, gliding across the water.

  Jenny laughed from the bow. “If we keep this up, I’m going to just buy a fucking boat. By the seven devils, I never thought I’d do so much boating in college.”

  Lillee sat with Tori, trying to comfort the dwab.

  “You don’t understand!” Tori wailed in a voice so unlike her usual chatter. “No dwarf can swim! We’re stone! We’re basically made of stone. Stones sink.”

  “You’re not stone,” Lillee said in a quiet voice. “At least you don’t taste like stone. You certainly don’t smell like stone. As for how you feel—”

  The little woman, huddled in a cloak, cut her off. “We are not talking about any of that. I won’t be spending my last minutes alive discussing my Inconvenience!”

  Jenny and Lillee tried to soothe Tori, but the dwab didn’t believe her friends could save her with Flow magic. But however miserable, she would’ve been far sadder missing out on the adventure.

  Damnation Sue stood on the dock, her big cat in her arms. It was a monstrous feline, with huge green eyes, a bright pink nose, and shaggy black and white fur to go with its bad disposition. Sue was burdened, so Jennybelle leapt out of the boat and got them tied up to the dock. She helped Tori out, pulling the wide woman while Lillee pushed.

  It wasn’t long before they were marching up the path toward the lighthouse and the little barn-like storeroom next to it on the windward side.

  “You still think someone summoned that demon?” Sue asked. “Or was it the merfolk’s lost pet? Or maybe that evil fortress you call a school finally puked up some little devil like Pussy Face here hawks up hairballs.”

  That made Ymir take another look at the cat. With that bright pink nose, she
was well named. Jenny chuckled. Neither Tori nor Lillee commented.

  Sue unlocked the doors for them. “You don’t need an old woman in your business. I feel bad for your troubles, though, and you paid me, and I like money. Don’t want to know about the spell you’re casting. We good?”

  “We’re good,” Ymir answered.

  Pussy Face gave them a final growl. It was six flights of stairs to the top, and around and around they went. Pushing open a door, they stood on a platform that circled the light, which was a blinding Sunfire spell encased in a crystalline compartment. The central tower rotated in a loud grinding of gears. The light pointed eastward across the Weeping Sea toward far Ethra before rotating south to shine eastward on StormCry, where the Shieldmaiden moon rose higher into the starry sky.

  Tori moaned. “I hate water, but I don’t much like heights either. The views from my place are nice, but I never get too close to the edge. Here, I’m right at the edge. Bless my stone butt, but whoever engineered this was an idiot. We need gosh-be-grounded guardrails at least. You could encase the whole thing, which would keep out the elements. Idiots.”

  Jenny was there to try to comfort her. “Sorry, Tori, but you’re doing well. You didn’t throw up in the boat. You aren’t running screaming down the steps.”

  “I see my work through,” the little woman said, wiping sweat from her brow.

  They all had come with their school satchels.

  Tori removed the silver bowl and set it down, while Jennybelle filled it with water from a jug. Lillee withdrew her sketch of the ring. She’d cut the sand letter into a circle so it fit the bowl.

  He took the sketch. That paper felt wrong, and it wasn’t just because Jenny’s sister was some evil bitch, as cruel as she was stupid. No, that drawing, scribbled on the back, seemed to come alive in the shadow of the lighthouse’s radiance. It was like he could lift the ring off the page.

  Jenny motioned to the moonlight shimmering in the silver bowl. “We got the aszeculum, the reflection of the moon in water. I think it’s perfect.”

  Ymir knew it was, and he felt the gooseflesh pebble his arms. He felt the power of the night, in the silver bowl, in the paper, and in himself. His dusza was filled with energy, swollen, and yet, it also felt cold, like he’d drunk too much cold water too fast and it lay in his belly like spring runoff.

  Clenching his teeth, he caged his fear in anger. He would get this business over with as quickly as possible.

  The princesses stepped back, Tori on one side, Jenny and Lillee on the other.

  Ymir knelt before the bowl. He’d prepared for this moment. Crafting the ring was far more of an exam than whatever the Examiners had in mind for him in the coming week.

  Octovato said the ringmaker would be tested. He didn’t say how, exactly, only that it had something to do with the Akkir Akkor.

  The clansman had the Black Ice Ring on. He still wasn’t sure what that damn thing did, but he did know it gave him a bit more power. He growled, “Jelu jelarum.” Both light and shadow erupted out of the circle of cold on his left hand.

  He held the circular sketch over the bowl. Around him, the world was alive with noise, smells, everything to ignite his senses. He smelled the three women, their exertion, their perfume, such a delicious mix. There was the sound of the waves crashing on the windward side of the island, a light breeze, the women breathing, especially Tori. The fire-headed dwab had herself pressed up against the crystalline enclosure. Gears ground as the light inside shifted to show her clearly—Tori’s cloak was blown back over her shoulder, and she was sweaty, but she was also flushed. Her hard nipples were clearly visible through her dress.

  Her eyes blazed with lust. Her Inconvenience had found her. The Morbuskor were wise to name it that. It couldn’t have picked a worse time to visit her. The bright magic inside the lighthouse moved onward, leaving them in darkness for a second.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  YMIR GROWLED AT THE timing of the dwab’s sexual frenzy. Well, she and it would have to wait.

  The light traveled around so he could see enough to continue creating the Veil Tear Ring. “Caelum caelarum.” He used the simple Moons cantrip to levitate the paper into the bowl. This was part of the ritual, and he’d had to perfect his Moons magic to do it.

  The second the mystical ink, heavy with his spit and Tori’s blood, touched the water, the world seemed to stop. Nothing moved. All was silence.

  Ymir turned and saw the princesses watching him; their mouths were half open, and their eyes were wide. They didn’t seem to be moving at first. A second glance, and they were moving, just slowly, so slowly.

  That was when he heard the voice, and it was loud, so loud, but not in his ears. It was loud in his mind. It didn’t so much speak a language as it pulled words from him, in the tongue of the Ax Tundra clans.

  THE VEIL BLINDS THE EYES OF THOSE DOOMED TO DIE. TRAPPED IN SECONDS. BOUND BY INCHES.

  Light flared. For a second, he thought it was from the lighthouse. It wasn’t.

  In front of him, the night sky was ripped open, and something, some presence, was there. And he’d gotten that something’s undivided attention.

  It looked like someone had cut open the night sky, and light leaked out. That was the veil. All of reality seemed suddenly thin. Even though he was six stories above the rocky ground, it seemed as if he could see waves washing through the night sky, making the stars ripple.

  The voice, though, wasn’t coming from that shining, bleeding light. It seemed to be coming from behind him. YOU WOULD TEAR THE VEIL. YOU WEAR AN AKKIRIC RING. THE SLEEPER. THE AWAKENED. THE DREAM.

  Ymir gritted his teeth. All these things, these demons, seemed to be in bed with one another, fucking each other in the ass as far as he knew.

  “Fucking magic,” he spat. He lifted his voice. “I want to fashion the Veil Tear Ring. If you are to test me, get it over with!” His belly boiled, his dusza felt like a ball of ice inside of him, and his spine was winter. Every one of his hairs stood on end. His Ax-damned heart thundered in his ears.

  YOU STINK OF HELL, YMIR, SON OF YMOK, OF THE BLACK WOLF CLAN. WE CAN SMELL YOU.

  “You probably smell yourself. Or is this part of the test? I bathed this morning.” He recklessly laughed at the slash of light leaking brilliance. Another “we,” but he didn’t think this “we” had anything to do with Siteev Ckins and the Midnight Guild. He hated that this akkor, or orisha or spirit, knew his name.

  WE KNOW YOUR SPIT IS IN THE SPELL. WE KNOW THE MORBUSKOR GIRL, TORIAH WELLDEEP, GAVE HER BLOOD. SHE IS INNOCENT IN HER OWN WAY. WE ARE NOT TRAPPED IN SECONDS. WE SEE THAT HER HEART BROKE A LONG TIME AGO. WE SEE THAT THE SWEAT OF YOUR OHLYRRAN ARTIST, LILLEE NEHENNA, IS ALSO IN THE INK. WE SEE HER ACROSS THE CONTINENT, IN GREENHOME, WEEPING. WE ARE NOT BOUND BY MILES. YOU WILL BE. YOU MUST BE CLOSE TO THOSE WHO YOU WOULD SCRY IN BOTH MILES AND MOMENTS.

  Ymir noted that proximity played a role in how the ring would function.

  The voice finished in a flourish. WE FIND THE GIFTS OF YOUR BODIES SATISFYING. WE FIND YOUR DESIRES FOR POWER SATISFYING. WE WILL TEST YOU.

  Ymir loathed this whole exchange, and he knew, if Della Pennez witnessed what he was seeing, she would kill him where he stood. The clansman was dealing with forces far beyond him, and far beyond the Honored Princept, for all he knew. This was why these artifacts were forbidden. This was why he was foolish to be toying with this sorcery shit.

  The light before him grew brighter. He found himself mesmerized by it, half blinded, but the test wasn’t in the light. That felt like a distraction. No, whatever he was dealing with was loud and bright, and in the stories, that was never the answer. That was never where the truth lay. The truth hid behind a veil. The truth hid in shadows.

  Ymir glanced at the shadow under him, behind him, created by the radiance. His shadow moved on its own, growing bigger, thicker, taking on a form of its own. It reached out with inky hands far bigger than his own.

  Those big hands latched onto Ymir’s throat.
He couldn’t even cast a spell to put Flow armor around his neck. He couldn’t speak at all. His own shadow was throttling him. Somehow, that felt right. Ymir wanted to laugh at the idea because it had a certain amount of irony—he’d become the very thing he’d always hated.

  Well, if he truly despised the magic part of him, he could get his hands on it in the form of the shadowy thing in front of him. Faceless, thin in some places and fatter in others, the thing still had a throat.

  Ymir grabbed it, squeezing, and he felt the satisfying crunch of bone under the skin. The clansman was straining his neck, teeth clenched, cording the muscles of his throat to keep those hands from crushing his bones. He was snorting, nostrils flaring, sucking in breath.

  The shadow was as well, matching him, and he knew, this was the test. Others might have had to fight their shadows with knives, or spells, or riddles. For Ymir, it was his strength and his own hands, and he was not going to lose.

  This was the vision he and Della had seen. This was the demon coming for him. But what about Jenny lying on the stone steps? That was during exam week. He could prevent it as long as he passed this damn test.

  He didn’t fight for himself.

  He fought for Tori. The beardless dwab deserved a life of love and lust, not just an Inconvenience Partner or an inconvenient marriage, where she hardly felt a thing for her family.

  He fought for Jenny, so he could keep her safe from the Josentown assassins who were bound to come if they weren’t already there.

  He fought for Lillee, who had come so far in accepting herself in the months he’d known her. He couldn’t leave her—she was as much of an outcast as he was. They all were, even Tori, because of how she looked.

  Blinding pain took his sight. He felt his bones giving way, and he knew it was only his will that kept him going. His will had to be stronger than his shadow’s.