The Legend of Drak'Noir

by Ploof, Michael James

  “I know that song,” he said. “I’ve seen it performed a number of times. ‘A Call to War.’ It’s a Vhalovian song.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” said Akitla.

  “What is that?”

  “Why do you insist on trying to get to know me? I’m not going south. I don’t care what my mother says.”

  “I’d rather not go south either,” said Sir Eldrick, thinking of the companions and the looks on their faces when the truth had come out.

  “Why are you here, anyway? You clearly did not intend to come.”

  “To tell you the truth, I was running away.”

  “Some knight you are,” she said with a scoff.

  “Yeah, some knight I am. I stabbed my king in the back by sleeping with the queen, and then sold out my friends to save my own hide.”

  “Great, not only is my father a human, but he’s a heartless bastard as well.”

  Sir Eldrick laughed weakly. “No, not a bastard. I killed my father with my bare hands.”

  Akitla stood there, shocked.

  “It’s probably best that you don’t want to get to know me,” said Sir Eldrick, voice fading as he stared at the painting of a small Magestrian village, one that could easily have been the village of his birth. “I really am no good for anyone. Sorry I interrupted you.”

  Sir Eldrick turned and left, leaving Akitla to stare after him, speechless. In the hall, he angrily wiped at his eyes. He felt someone watching him, and saw a guard staring at him.

  “Got any spirits?” he asked the female.

  She simply shook her head, eyes unwavering, hands covered in frost.

  “Never mind, I’ll find it on my own.”

  ***

  Queen Astrila stormed down the hall and stopped abruptly when she saw the hole cut out of Akitla’s door. She pushed it open, and found her daughter reading a book beside the fire.

  “Privacy, Mother, remember what we talked ab—”

  “Sir Eldrick is gone.”

  Akitla glanced at her mother from over the top of the book. “And?”

  “What did you say to him? Your guard told me that he visited you earlier.”

  “I told him that he was a bastard, and something else of that nature. Why? And what do you mean, gone? Where is there to go?”

  “North,” said the queen, hands on hips. “He was seen heading north.”

  Akitla shrugged.

  “This was hours ago,” said the queen. “He’ll die out there.”

  “What do you care? And for that matter, what do I care?”

  Astrila took a slow breath in through her nose, noticing that her hands were frosting. Her daughter noticed this as well, and was eyeing her cautiously.

  “He is a flawed man. He is a haunted man. But he is a good man.”

  Akitla shrugged.

  “You know that my visions often come true,” said Astrila. “I recently saw Sir Eldrick dead in a blood-stained snow drift. When he arrived, I thought that if my vision was going to come true, I might as well let you meet him before it happens. Then, in an attempt to change his fate, I decided to send him south, where there is no snow. But you have changed all that. Whatever you said sent him north to certain death. If anything happens to him, it is on your head.”

  She turned and marched for the door, but then stopped and turned back toward her daughter. “I loved him for a time, you know. And I believe that in his own way, he loved me. But he is a guarded man, and doesn’t often let anyone in. I believe that he came to you in an attempt to redeem himself. You should have given him a chance.”

  With that, she left, but not before seeing the tears that her words had caused.

  ***

  The icy wind cut through Sir Eldrick’s clothing like the creeping fingers of Death himself. He opened his eyes slowly. Colors danced in the northern sky; electric greens and blues and aquamarines rippled across the horizon, coalescing and blending together before once again shooting in opposite directions.

  Tears welled in his eyes and quickly froze to his cheeks. He had seen the northern lights before, long ago, but he didn’t remember them being so radiant. The ice elves believed that the lights were the celestial bodies of the gods, dancing in the sky in celebration and approval. Sir Eldrick didn’t believe it—he didn’t believe anything, but still, he was awed by the beauty of the empyrean dance.

  With hands cramped by cold, he reached for the bottle sitting in the snow beside him and tipped it back, but if there was anything left, it was frozen at the bottom. He pocketed the bottle and struggled to stand.

  He staggered and shook his fist at the heavens. “They say that you are the gods!” he screamed at the dancing lights. “And I say to the hells with the gods! To the hells with everything! I hope that Drak’Noir burns this shithole to the ground!”

  Sir Eldrick threw the bottle at the lights and slipped, falling hard in the snow. He wept, thinking of Murland, Gibrig, Willow, and Brannon. He thought of his father, the look on his siblings’ faces, and he erupted with such sorrow, such forlorn rage, that the icicles clinging to the ridge behind him shattered and fell to the ground.

  A growl, low and menacing, issued behind him.

  He turned, noticing the ridge for the first time, and the large opening in the stone below it. Sir Eldrick got to his feet with renewed vigor and let out his own baleful growl. A roar answered his still-echoing cry, and Sir Eldrick stopped, drunkenly bobbing back and forth, trying to see beyond the biting cold and ice that had gathered on his eyelashes.

  The sound came again, louder this time, and the ground shook with heavy footsteps.

  Sir Eldrick grinned.

  “Have the gods finally given me a worthy opponent? Come forth if you dare, foul beast!”

  A twelve-foot-tall yeti erupted from the cave, and to some it might have looked like a nightmare with its powerful arms and legs, rippled torso, and long, wicked claws, but Sir Eldrick welcomed it.

  He unsheathed his fae blade and threw it into the snow. “Come on, you bastard!” he taunted.

  The yeti needed no coaxing, however, and charged through the deep snow. Curved claws shined with moonlight, muscles rippled, and the ape-like winter creature fell upon Sir Eldrick with a terrible roar.

  Sir Eldrick met the charge, ducking the swiping claws and sliding between the beast’s legs. He came up quickly, just as the yeti was turning around, and leapt on its back. He ripped a handful of hair out of the back of the monster’s head and laughed, boxing its ears with all his might and riding it like a beast of burden. “Come on, you must have more than that!”

  The yeti cried out in pain and reached back, grabbing ahold of Sir Eldrick’s leg. The beast flung him like a rag doll into a row of long, hanging icicles at the edge of the cave. Sir Eldrick crashed through them, shattering the crystalline shards with his back before crashing into the stone wall and falling to the ground with a thud.

  “Not bad,” he said with a groan before getting to his feet.

  The yeti beat his chest and roared, showing row after row of terribly sharp teeth. Sir Eldrick roared back, peeling back his lips to show his own. The beast charged, and Sir Eldrick held his ground until the last moment. When the yeti swiped at him again, he caught the arm, though the force pressed him against the wall. He used it as leverage, wedging his foot between wall and floor and holding the arm at bay. The yeti’s other clawed hand came at him from the other direction, and Sir Eldrick caught this as well, his smaller hand wrapping around one large finger and twisting. He stared the monster in the eye as he rotated his arms, and a satisfying snap found his ears.

  The yeti howled with pain and reeled back, pulling his hands free and scratching his long claws across Sir Eldrick’s armor, leaving deep gouges.

  Sir Eldrick laughed drunkenly, but then a fist suddenly hit him in the chest, denting his armor. He hit the wall and crumpled, but quickly leapt to his feet. He side-stepped the next blow and punched the yeti in the ribs.

  Another satisfying crac
k.

  The beast backhanded him, sending him spiraling through the air to land twenty feet away in the snow. Stars danced in Sir Eldrick’s vision as he got up, but he was too slow; the yeti was already upon him. He felt himself lifted into the air and was thrown once more, this time into the hard stone wall of the cave.

  Sir Eldrick labored for a full breath. He grabbed his armor by the armpits and pushed out, bending the dented armor back into position. The yeti grabbed his right arm and yanked, and this time, the crack was made by Sir Eldrick’s bones. He felt his arm pop out of the socket, but ignored the pain. He leapt and punched out with one long finger, right into the beast’s left eye. He felt the orb give way and buried his finger deep. The yeti, however, seemed to possess the same tolerance for pain, for rather than reel back, this time it fell upon him, crushing Sir Eldrick, and slashed his face with four wicked claws. Sir Eldrick felt hot blood pour across his face, but he cared not. He took the opportunity of the closeness to grab ahold of the monster’s head with his good arm and bite into the wide nose. He pulled back his head and spit the chunk of flesh in the yeti’s face before gouging the other eye.

  The yeti roared in his face, trying to bite him, but Sir Eldrick held it at bay. Claws broke through his armor and drew blood as they crushed the life out of him, but Sir Eldrick laughed all the while and gouged the other eye again, this time ripping it out.

  The cry of rage and pain was ear-shattering. The yeti grabbed its mutilated face and fell back, blinded and terrified.

  “Come on, you son of a bitch! Kill me!” Sir Eldrick cried, and he forced himself up, right arm dangling uselessly at his side.

  The yeti seemed to have had enough and fled into the cave. Sir Eldrick limped after it, determined to die.

  ***

  Akitla snapped the reins, spurring on her team of dire wolves. The cold wind created a whiteout, but the two beasts had keen noses. She had given them one of the shirts that Sir Eldrick had worn, and now they were hot on the trail. However, if she didn’t hurry, the snow and wind would eventually scatter the scent. She had been at it for two hours, and the dire wolves zigged and zagged as they followed in the drunk man’s footsteps. Unlike her kin, Akitla was not comfortable in the cold. She wore thick boots, gloves, a fur hat, heavy pants, and a coat of white bear fur, and still the cold bit at her, creeping through the seams and chilling her to the bone. This was her home, however, and she was used to dealing with the cold.

  Akitla had tried to hide her strangeness when she was a child, before she learned that she was half human. Not wanting the others to know how the cold affected her, she had braved the elements for hours at a time, dressed no more than the rest of them, which usually only consisted of one article of clothing, purely decorative, and sometimes boots. The ruse had gone on until she was seven years old, when she had almost died of pneumonia.

  Riding through the frigid north toward the dancing lights of the gods, she wondered why she was trying to help the man who called himself her father. Was it not better to let him die? He seemed to want to. When she had first met him, he had been disheveled, with a straggly, unkempt beard and wild, bloodshot eyes. What had her mother seen in him that she would let him plant a seed in her holy womb? For so many years, Akitla had wondered about the human father she had never met, one that was said to be the greatest knight in all of Vhalovia. She had even convinced her mother to buy the book written about him by a traveling bard. Akitla had devoured the stories and had convinced her mother to let her write to her father. The queen was hesitant, but when Akitla refused to eat for two weeks, her mother finally caved in. Akitla wrote half a dozen letters to her father, but he never wrote back, and by the time she had become a teenager, she had begun to hate the man. By then, other ice elves knew that she was nothing like them, but the teasing of children had turned into the violence of teenagers, and the fighting had begun. Males of course said and did nothing to her, but the females were vicious. Akitla held her own and excelled at her studies of the ice-wielding arts. For although she did not share her kin’s hot-bloodedness, she had inherited the female power to manipulate and conjure ice from the frigid air.

  The wolves began to slow down, and Akitla snapped the reins, trying to egg them on. They were losing the scent, she knew; this was as far as they could bring her.

  Akitla pulled the braking lever and dropped the spiked anchor. The dire wolves stopped and snapped at each other playfully, plumes of fog issuing from their wet snouts with every breath.

  “Good Keeka, good Meeka. You stay here now. I’ll be back,” she said, stroking their white coats.

  She retrieved two whale ribs from the sled and tossed them to her wolves before setting out on foot in the whiteout. With her innate ability, she pulled lightly on the snow in front of her, summoning the snow and ice that had been compressed by Sir Eldrick’s feet. It was an old tracking trick, used for hundreds of years by the ice elves, but it was a hard one to master—it had taken Akitla a season, but she had finally figured it out. Sure enough, large boot prints rose to the top of the snow, and she hurried in that direction, raising the prints as she went.

  After an hour of tracking Sir Eldrick in this manner, her labor finally paid off. She came to a place where he had sat down, likely to rest, and then the tracks led to a cave. Her excitement was short lived, however, as she noticed the tracks of another creature: a yeti.

  Akitla summoned frost to her hands, ready to produce a shard if need be. She crept carefully, watching the mouth of the cave even as she studied the tracks. There had clearly been a fight, for there was the red blood of a man, and the dark blue blood of a yeti, spilled on the ground. To her relief, there seemed to be more yeti blood about. She noticed the hilt of a sword sticking out of the snow, and upon retrieving it, found it to be of fae make.

  “The crazy bastard fought the beast without a sword?” she said to herself, astonished and grudgingly proud of the man.

  Sword in hand, she ventured into the cave, ready to defend herself against the wild yeti. The floor beyond the entrance was covered in bones, which was no surprise. What shocked her was the tracks, for unless she was mistaken, the yeti had staggered into the cave first, and a limping Sir Eldrick had gone in after it. This was evident in Sir Eldrick’s tracks sometimes messing the beasts, which could not have occurred if the beast was pursuing him.

  “You crazy man, what were you thinking?”

  Having grown up in a matriarchy where the males were about as spineless as slugs, she was astonished to think of such bravery from the other sex. Of course, she knew about the cultures of the wider world, a world mostly run by men, but to see the difference firsthand was strange indeed.

  She felt the urge to call his name, but she didn’t want to give up the element of surprise should the yeti be alive and waiting for a tasty treat such as her to come walking into its den. The entrance of the cave was wide, made wider still by the strong hands and sharp claws of the yeti. And judging by the size of the opening, this cave was home to more than one of the creatures.

  Akitla summoned an ice shard into her left hand and held the sword of Sir Eldrick in her right. A kind of antechamber was immediately beyond the threshold of the cave, and beyond that two tunnels branched off, one to the right, the other to the left. She followed the tracks down the right tunnel, sniffing like a wolf to see what she might learn. All she discovered was that yeti stink made her eyes water. The place was full of it, so much so that she could not smell Sir Eldrick at all.

  Bones littered this tunnel as well, and she knew that more would be waiting in the main chamber. She carefully made her way down the wide passage, ears perked, nose constantly investigating, and eyes scanning. Aside from ice magic, she had been gifted with her kin’s excellent night vision as well. The northern lights were bright tonight, and their reflection off the mineral-rich walls, though faint this deep in, was more than enough for her to see clearly.

  She came to the opening of the next chamber and stopped for a moment to clear her
mind and prepare herself for the violence to come. She had determined that there was no way Sir Eldrick had survived the fight without a weapon. Legendary warrior or not, he was a man, and the yeti was twice his weight if not more, and at least twelve feet tall, judging by the tracks.

  Once she had summoned her courage and accepted the idea that she would likely find the man who called her daughter lying dead in the snow, she turned the corner.

  Akitla let out a gasp, for there was Sir Eldrick, lying with his head resting on the back of the dead yeti, whose own head was twisted around so far that it faced the ceiling above.

  “Father!” Akitla cried and rushed to Sir Eldrick’s side.

  He looked to her groggily and smiled a bloody-toothed grin. “Akitla, my beautiful, fearless daughter. You came for me.”

  She did not wince at the title of daughter; instead, she felt tears fill her eyes, and she hugged him.

  “Ah!” he said, hissing. “Watch the arm.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she found herself crying into his shoulder. “I’m sorry that I was so terribly rotten to you.”

  “You called me Father. That is the first time anyone has ever called me that. For I have never been one before. I have never cared to be. But now, seeing you…” His words trailed off as he broke down.

  Akitla had seen men cry before, for in the ice elf society, males cried much more than females. But she wasn’t used to sharing tears or feelings with anyone, let alone a man. She didn’t feel as strange as she thought she should. Indeed, it felt quite normal, and like something she didn’t even know she had craved. Now that it was happening, however, she found it exhilarating.

  Akitla was tired of acting so strong and pretending that nothing bothered her. She had been forced to put on such a façade around the other elves, but now, sharing this moment with her father, she felt that she could truly be herself.