The Call of Winter (The Harbingers of Light Book 6)

by Travis Simmons

  Abagail couldn’t agree with him more. Silence fell over the group as they made their way further into the blizzard. Snow seemed to be everywhere, and Abagail had a hard time even seeing Skye beside her. Eyes barely open against the onslaught, she bowed her way through the storm, huddling over to block the wind from tearing through her clothing. The axe on one hip and the sword on the other was almost too great a weight to bear as she slogged through the snow.

  The day was gray and overcast, and the snow lent an eerie silence to the land, muffling what sounds should normally have carried. Even the thrum of her own heart in her ears sounded like a soft drum, lulling her to sleep. Walking through the snow left a weariness within her that made her wish for a roaring fire, hot cocoa, and a good book. She dashed the thoughts away. Who knew if she would ever have that again? It was best not to even think about it.

  Before long Daphne halted and bobbed around in the way that she did to indicate she had something to show them. Abagail couldn’t help but think of the pixie as an anxious child so excited that she’d found something or had something to tell that she might vibrate out of her skin at any moment.

  The snow had covered the majority of the tracks, but there was still some that could be seen. Abagail didn’t bother looking at them. It was unlikely she would be able to tell anything different than what the two elves could see. While Skye and Celeste bent to the task of deciphering the tracks, Abagail stood guard. Huddled in her cloak, she stared out at the slanting snow around them.

  “Well, it isn’t large enough to be Gorjugan,” Celeste confirmed. Abagail wondered just how much the elves thought it could have been the darkling god. To her it seemed largely unlikely that he would have been here. Even if Heimdall was dead and Anthros was released, wouldn’t Gorjugan have better things to do? Like destroying the Void? She thought.

  Even though Abagail hadn’t really thought it would have been Gorjugan, something within her relaxed when she learned the tracks were too small to be the darkling god.

  Skye nodded. “The bad news is there’s several tracks here with Marggie’s.”

  “A nightmare of snakes,” Celeste said. “And skeletons.”

  “Skeletons?” Abagail asked, now bending to the task of identifying the tracks. Skye scattered some snow away from the area so that Abagail could see better. He was gentle so as not to ruin the volatile tracks they’d found. There was no mistaking the prints. Abagail had never seen skeleton tracks before, but she had fought skeletons in Muspelheim. These tracks, the size and shape of a human’s, though oddly formed, as if the toes of a large bird had depressed the snow, looked as though they could have belonged to the very same foe she’d faced before.

  “Marggie has to be playing host to Hilda,” Abagail told them. “When Hilda attacked Muspelheim, there were tons of skeletons and corpses that we had to face.”

  “She is the ruler of the dead,” Celeste said. “The unwanted dead, that is. It would stand to reason that she could command the dead of other places.”

  “Or even travel with her own retinue of corpses,” Skye agreed.

  “This is good,” Abagail said. “It’s good we found these tracks. At least now we know what we’re up against, and we can better prepare for it.”

  Skye quirked an eyebrow. “It’s just not good that what we find ourselves up against is a darkling god and those creatures in her thrall.”

  Hours later and the snow still hadn’t let up. Seeing through the squall to where Daphne led them was impossible for Abagail. She kept her eyes rooted on Celeste’s back, hoping that the elf’s vision was good enough that she could spot the pixie bobbing ahead of them

  The going was slow. The snow ever deepening around their legs, making every step labored. More than once Abagail had fallen and thought it would be impossible to struggle out of the snow and back to her feet. Her heart was racing and her breath was heavy and stung in her lungs. Her legs burned. She didn’t know how much longer she could go on.

  She had to keep going though. There was no way around it. Some time ago they’d heard the hungry cry of wolves carried to them on the frigid wind. A shift of the gale carried the cries away and it was uncertain to Abagail if the wind was still muffling the call of the wolves, or if the snow was making them seem farther away than they were.

  They drew to a halt to let their legs rest. Daphne bloomed out of the miasma of snow and fog around them. She alighted on Celeste’s shoulder, painting her golden hair in shades of purple.

  It alarmed Abagail that she hadn’t seen Daphne’s light before she appeared. That caused worry of the wolves to flare anew within her.

  “I haven’t heard the wolves in a while,” Abagail said once she’d caught her breath. She sat on a boulder she could barely see through all of the snow and started massaging her aching legs. Neither of the elves looked like the trip was tiring them in the slightest. Even Skye who was still recovering from the attack in Haven wasn’t showing signs of fatigue. “That’s good, right?”

  “They are hunting us,” Skye said. He turned his gaze back the way they’d come as if he expected to see the wolves at any moment.

  “But through this wind? All of the snow?” Abagail asked. She hoped that Skye was wrong, but he was a guard for New Landanten, it was unlikely that he would be wrong about danger threatening them. It would be stupid to doubt anyway, Abagail thought. She remembered what Maise had told them back at the camp, danger lurked out here. It wouldn’t due to lie to herself simply because she didn’t like the alternative.

  “They aren’t tracking our scent,” Celeste said.

  “They follow our wyrd,” Skye said. “It’s been a little less than an hour since they fell silent.”

  “And we have to assume they are much more skilled in this snow than we are,” Celeste said. “Even if they weren’t aided by darkling wyrd, the wild is used to this weather.”

  “We should be ready for them,” Skye said, nodding to Abagail’s sword. She checked that she could draw it easily and nodded that she was as ready as she was likely to be for an attack in a storm like this.

  “All right, we need to press on,” Celeste said.

  Skye smiled when Abagail groaned. “Just a little longer, right?” he asked Celeste.

  “Yes, Daphne says it’s not far now, but there’s something strange happening. Some kind of darkling wyrd surrounds the portal.”

  “We really should have expected that,” Skye said. He sighed.

  “Yes, we should have.” Celeste fell silent and followed the retreating pixie into the storm.

  Mere moments later Daphne appeared once more, frantically buzzing around Celeste’s head and chiming her language that only the elves could understand.

  “What’s she saying?” Abagail asked.

  Skye frowned, but didn’t answer because Daphne was still chiming and buzzing around their heads. Eventually she stopped and landed on Celeste’s shoulder, tucking herself under the neckline of the elf’s seafoam dress where her purple light was all but lost.

  “Are you able to go to orb?” Celeste asked, turning her attention to Skye.

  He nodded. “Not much choice either way.”

  “What did she say?” Abagail asked again, pulling the cloak tighter around her shoulders when the wind picked up violently.

  “We are surrounded by the wolves,” Celeste said.

  “Can’t we just fight them? Are you sure going to orb is wise for Skye?”

  “There’s no way around it,” Skye said. “We have to go to orb. Those aren’t mere darklings. They are shades of Anthros.”

  “What?” Abagail asked. Her hair prickled with the words. “That would mean he has to be free? That means Heimdall is dead. That means . . .”

  “It would appear so,” Celeste said. Her voice was somber. “We don’t have time to debate this though, we are already too late in stopping the darkling gods from freeing Anthros. We need to get the God Slayer back before they can do more harm with it.”

  Abagail was uncertain what mo
re damage they could do with the spear; they’d already released Anthros. If what she heard was true, none of the gods remained in the Ever After. Who were they going to kill with it that they hadn’t already killed?

  But then a thought came to Abagail. If she went into Eget Row, they would be able to kill her. Not just kill her, completely destroy all energy that had ever been of the All Father. It chilled her to the bone more than the snow and the wind ever could. The All Father was the best chance they had at stopping all of this. If she died . . .

  Now Anthros was free. Stopping him had been their goal all along. What were they going to do now that he was free?

  Helvegr . . . the wind whispered. All around her the otherworldly name for the end of days was carried higher on the wind in a chill of wolves howling out their bane to the dismal day.

  A brilliant golden glow broke Abagail from her thoughts. She turned in time to see the last of Skye’s features melting away to a radiance of sunlight. When the light had traced away all image of the elf, it shrunk to the size of a human head, and floated up into the snowy sky.

  Celeste pushed through the snow to Abagail as the first of the wolves appeared. White like the snow, it towered higher than any horse could. It’s eyes glowed aqua, like the god it mimicked. Around the wolf the air seemed to hum with power.

  “This may feel a little strange,” Celeste said. As she slipped her hands into Abagail’s, time seemed to slow. Celeste’s hands were soft and warm as if she’d just pulled them away from a fire. From over the elf’s shoulder the sun scepter flared to life.

  The light and warmth of the sun scepter swept over them, washing away the cold and the wet of the storm. To Abagail it felt as though she were laying on a warm beach, the sand beneath her warmed by the heat of the sun. So warm, in fact, that she felt as though the sand may be too hot. In the heat, her muscles were forced to relax. Abagail felt herself give in to the warmth of the sand. She felt as though she were melting into the sand. Her body seemed nothing more than liquid, and she was seeping into the warmth of the sand until it was hard for her to tell where the sand ended, and her body began.

  She smelled honey and felt as if the thick nectar was pour through her, humming in time with her body. In the distance, Abagail could hear bees, and she felt as though the drone of the bees like a second heartbeat.

  And then there was another presence folding around her. It was soft, like velvet. It was another mind. It was Celeste.

  In a lurch, they began to move through the liquid warmth of the scepter. Beneath her, Abagail could see the miles of snow whip by. She could see the wolves better now. They weren’t black as she might have thought they would be. Just as the wolf she’d seen about to attack them before they took to orb, they were an eerie kind of white that glowed with a sickly blue light. They turned their aqua eyes up to the orbs and let out a mournful howl.

  With the howl, a coldness surrounded them. Winter threatened to freeze the warm sand that Abagail felt make up the inside of the orb. Storm clouds threatened to overtake the sunny glow of the orb.

  “Hold on,” Celeste said, and her voice came from all around Abagail. “This could get rough.”

  The orb shivered in the cadence of the howl rising from the glowing blue maw of the wolves. The power that rode their cry was more wyrd than it was sound. A wintery wyrd that shook the orb, pitched them from side to side until Abagail was sure her mind would be thrown from the orb and she would fall to the waiting hunger of the shades of Anthros.

  The orb hardened. It became less like a bubble of light, and more like stone. Inside the orb, Abagail felt restricted as she hadn’t before. Her mind felt pinched into a space that was much too small for it. She knew what was happening, she knew that Celeste was preparing them for an attack, but it didn’t make it any less uncomfortable. It became hard to breath, as if a great leather belt were constricting her chest and lungs.

  Then they were falling. The orb flew faster than Abagail thought was possible. She feared they were going to collide with the ground at any moment. From somewhere within the liquid sunshine of the orb she felt her heart hammering hard in her ears.

  Mere inches before they slammed into the ground, the orb righted itself and flew straight toward the wolves.

  A concussion, like running straight into an ice wall, shook Abagail. The orb crashed into one towering blue-white wolves and the shade burst apart, showering the glittering snow with sparks of gray and blue ash.

  Cries went up and the wolves began to scatter, frightened of this power that they couldn’t understand, this power of light that threatened their darkness.

  Celeste gave chase. Ahead of them, Skye’s golden orb shuttled out of the sky and dispatched three wolves, one after another, showering their cremains around the broken snow.

  Celeste followed him, chasing after the wolves. Icy wall after icy wall was breeched, and the wolves cried out with their fearful wyrd. The orb shook, but there was little the wolves could do, though one tried.

  The wolf turned, and glided through the snow at them, leaping skillfully through the drifts as if they were nothing more than a light fog. Abagail noticed where the wolf stepped it left no trail. It rode a trail of wyrd over the snow and toward them.

  At the last minute the wolf opened its mouth, ready to chomp down on the golden ball. Its teeth did no damage. They sailed straight through the wolf, scattering his ashes around them as they came out the other end.

  Abagail lost count of how many wolves they took down as the shades fled their attack. Finally, there were no more wolves either they’d successfully fled or they’d dispatched them all.

  “Yes—” Celeste began, but just then their sunny orb slammed to a stop and this time Abagail did feel her mind pitch out of the orb. She was thrown from the sun-warmed sand of the beach and into the screaming wind of the winter storm. The purple light of Daphne streaked out beside her. As she fell, Abagail twisted around. Behind her, high in the sky, she watched the golden light that was Celeste burst into a billion starlets. Through her golden haze, Abagail saw a streak of darkness dart higher up in the sky, carving a burning trail through the dismal sky, like glowing embers of a long dead fire.

  The essence of Celeste fell around her. In the distance, the trail of shadow looped around and came back for the other orb; for Skye.

  “No!” Abagail screamed. She felt her wyrd answer. Her mind reached down into her body even as the chilling warmth of her wyrd reached up to answer her command. She stretched out her hand and light, pure and silver, shot from her palm. A bolt of silver lightning so powerful that it struck the blackened trail of smoke out of the sky mere seconds before it could dispatch Skye.

  The shadowy orb plummeted from the sky, and as it did the darkness ebbed away into the form of a short, squat woman. Her red robes fluttered around her as she cascaded to the ground. Moments later she was lost to the snow.

  And then Abagail’s mind went dark as she collided with the earth.

  Skye alighted on the ground beside Abagail, falling to his knees as soon as the light faded from his body and back into the scepter strapped to his back.

  The snow beside Abagail rippled and out of the bank burst the purple pixie, her light flashing in angry bursts. Abagail tried to sit up, but her head heaved, and the ground around her spun. She fell back to the ground and let her head calm before she tried it again. The next time she sat up, she actually made it, though she didn’t want to brave standing just then.

  “Where’s Celeste?” Skye asked.

  Abagail’s throat constricted as she remembered the collision; the fall from the sky that should have killed her; the streak of darkling orb that shattered Celeste’s orb, scattering her wyrd over the earth.

  Abagail looked up at Skye, an emptiness in her eyes that he recognized. That was all the answer Skye needed. He turned his back to Abagail, his hands on his hips. He let out a long sigh. Abagail didn’t realize she’d been crying until Skye finally turned back, and the wind of the storm threatened to f
reeze the tears on her cheeks.

  Skye crouched beside her and pulled her into his embrace. She felt his warmth, his strength infusing her. Her spirit felt bolstered, her body warmed as if some part of Celeste’s orb remained with her. When he pulled away, some of his power remained with her.

  Daphne settled on her shoulder, a weight like a feather.

  “We have to press on,” Skye said. “Daphne says the portal isn’t far from here. Just a few feet away.”

  Abagail rubbed her hand over her face and eased to her feet. Her head didn’t threaten to overturn her, so she checked her weapons to make sure they were all where they were supposed to be.

  Daphne lifted off from Abagail’s shoulder and once more took the lead. Abagail fell in step behind Skye, his scepter creating a light that she focused on and followed until he drew to a stop and she nearly ran into him.

  Daphne fluttered down onto Skye’s head.

  “We are here,” Skye said. “Wherever here is.”

  Before them was a building . . . if that’s what it could be called. Inside of her, Abagail felt her wyrd respond to the structure. Her wyrd rippled through her, nausea rising in her throat. She felt as though the power of the blackened structure were pushing against her, railing against her wyrd, trying to repel her; keeping her at bay. She pushed the sensation aside. It didn’t matter if that wyrd wanted her to stay out; she needed to go inside the building.

  The monolith was structured like an enormous black pyramid with ascending tiers like huge stairs that climbed to the top. Atop the basalt pyramid there was a chamber whose doorway stood open, a perverse green light spilling forth to cut a swath down the side of the pyramid. It wasn’t a welcoming light.

  Around the base of the pyramid clung a shadowy fogbank. If Abagail looked at the fogbank close enough, she could see figures within it, lumbering around like great shadows. She turned her eyes away from it, not wanting to imagine what horror might be contained within the fog.

  “The portal must be inside,” Skye said. “This is new. I’ve never seen this before. I didn’t know they could create buildings.”