Abagail stood and thrust the God Slayer at Hilda. The blow didn’t strike the goddess, instead, one of her nightmare creations stepped between them, and took the brunt of the blow to his midsection.
The nightmares all around them renewed their attack, and Abagail wasn’t sure how they were going to fight them back now. Skye and Mari’s scepters were depleted, and Mari didn’t have another weapon. She swung her scepter like a club, but all she could hope to do was push the gathering tide of nightmares back, not truly kill them.
Abagail would have given Mari her sword, but there was no time. The nightmares surged forward, and Skye took a position at Abagail’s back, Celeste and Mari doing the same to face the onslaught.
“We are going to die here,” Mari said.
No one argued with her. It was a truth they all felt.
As the first wave of nightmares reached them, the first drop of the All Father’s blood slipped into Elivigar. The river flared with light. All around their tiny island sunlight flared. In the blinding wash of heat and illumination, the nightmares let out a noise that could only be a cry of anguish. Abagail couldn’t see, but she could hear. Wet plops and squelches rang through the air as the darkling wyrd that made them fell away, was unmade, and the nightmares no longer fueled by darkling wyrd.
Hilda screamed out in rage, but even her rage sounded weak, depleted.
At once, the light of Elivigar faded, leaving splotches of shadows dancing across Abagail’s vision. At first she thought the splotches of darkness was darkling wyrd crawling through the depths of Elivigar, but she was wrong. When the shadows faded, and she saw the destruction of body parts and blood along the island, she realized Elivigar had been cleansed in a giant wave of light brought on by the All Father’s dying blood.
“You did this!” Hilda shrieked, pointing at Abagail. Her rotten side was limp, her leg dragged behind her as she shambled forward. The part of her mouth that rested on her rotten side didn’t move when she spoke, and as a result her words came out slurred, barely understandable. “You have weakened me!”
Abagail shrugged. She couldn’t see any issue with that. “I fear you did that all on your own,” Abagail said. “A happy coincidence.”
Hilda growled at her, or maybe she had tried to speak, but couldn’t form the words. Abagail didn’t much care. She had the upper hand now. The sounds of battle still raged on either side of Elivigar, but at least now the armies didn’t have to worry about the nightmares crawling from Elivigar.
Hilda fell to her knee, her rotten leg crumpling behind her in a twisted heap of useless muscle and sinew. “Please,” she said. “I seek the asylum you offered before.”
“That was the All Father,” Abagail said. “And he’s dead. For the last time, I’m Abagail, and you’ve lost your chance.”
And with that, Abagail drove God Slayer through Hilda’s chest. Black light flashed in her eyes. Her golden hair withered away, whitening like the rest of the hair on her head. Her healthy, blue eye frosted with death, her skin withered before their eyes, the healthy portion of her body catching up to the years and the death the other half of her body suffered.
Hilda was dead.
But there was no time to celebrate because just then a loud howl shook the ground of Eget Row, and Abagail spied the silvery white fur of Anthros as he lunged from the depths of the debris strewn Void, and to the Ever After.
He was larger than Abagail had ever seen him. His eyes like watery worlds floating toward the white light of the Ever After. His mouth was open, saliva dripping from his teeth. His jaws closed over the white light of the Ever After, and Eget Row was plunged into darkness so complete, Abagail feared she would lose herself to the chaos that she felt as the heavenly kingdom collapsed.
There was still light in Eget Row, but not much. The darkness had closed in on them like a palpable entity. Abagail felt crushed beneath its weight, and she knew that was the feeling of loss that came with the absence of power from the Ever After.
Still, the scepters of elves on either shore provided blips of light for her to see by. Elivigar shimmered with a white light, but that was quickly fading. To the south fires still raged, but something must have happened to the fire-etin, because what had once been a conflagration of towering flames, was dwindling down to smoldering fires that did little to light Eget Row.
Through the dim light, Abagail saw the last bits of leaves shiver, and then fall from the tree. She shivered with the tree, feeling its loss as her own, which it was, she figured. They’d lost. The time of men was drawing to a close. What was left?
Lif and Lifthrasir, she thought. The two that would repopulate the world in some epoch far distant from now.
Tears slipped unbidden down Abagail’s cheeks. There was so much being lost. Everything was coming to an end, and the one thing she never thought they’d lose was the tree. The beauty created for all of mankind to share in the afterlife was crumbling around them. She remembered her dream of Elivigar, so long ago, and the songs of birds and the buzz of bees that had played a symphony to her ears. Now the only sound she heard was the moans of death, the clash of war, and the muffled crackle of fire eating away at the greenery of Eget Row.
There was little green left that wasn’t swamped in blood, churned by feet, desecrated by viscera, or glazed with ice. Mountains of fallen leaves lay around the Well of Wyrding. As she watched, a giant pop sounded through Eget Row, near deafening to hear. A concussion shivered through the ground, and a slip of wyrd gushed form the well, flooding through Elivigar.
The wyrd slicked through the water, not fully mixing, but instead laying atop the river in iridescent hues of rainbow light. She sobbed, and Skye was there, gathering her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She felt the hard press of his body as she molded hers to his. His arms were warm, but they no longer carried the sense of peace they always seemed to. Still, she was comforted. When her tears ran their course, Skye kissed her, and brushed away the remnants of tears.
“What now?” he asked.
There was still much to do. There was no sign that Leona had faced with Gorjugan yet, and Anthros was high above, floating in what used to be the cosmos. How was she ever going to reach him? She had the God Slayer now, but she was drained of energy and without any wyrd she could call upon. She’d hoped that she might be able to somehow link with the tree, but that was dead as well.
She tore her gaze from the tree and up to where the light of the Ever After used to hover. The kingdom was still there, but it had lost its power. She could see the ballicrie flashing their claims of death down to the battlefield. The darklings were gone now, and she couldn’t be sure if they crouched, waiting for them, inside the great hall, or if they had been extinguished when the light of the Ever After fractured.
“I have to get to Anthros,” Abagail said. “I have to end this.”
“You know what end this means, right?” Celeste asked, stepping closer to them. Daphne rested on her shoulder. Abagail could barely make out the figure of the pixie, hunched over, her hands holding her head, her elbows propped on her knees. It was such a sorrowful pose that Abagail had to look away and fight back a fresh wash of tears.
Abagail nodded. “I know what it means.” She sighed, a great release of air that seemed to come from every fiber of her body. “Better it end on our terms than theirs.”
“So how are we getting there?” Mari asked.
“The tree,” Skye said, turning his gaze to the Well of Wyrding. “We climb.”
Abagail wasn’t sure if she had the energy to do that, but she nodded anyway.
The only way to get to the tree was through the water. Their little island wasn’t far from the Well of Wyrding, and after Abagail made sure the God Slayer was secure at her back, she slipped into the water. It was cool against her warm flesh, the heat of battle ebbing from her muscles, and somehow rejuvenating her against the tiredness she felt after working so much wyrd.
It didn’t, however, do a thing to waken the spark of
wyrd within her, and she couldn’t help but feel the emptiness it’s absence left within her. She’d gotten so used to the wyrd being there when she called—and intruding even when she didn’t summon it—that its loss felt almost as if she’d lost a part of herself. She guessed that was true. There was a fragment of her that she no longer had to touch, to call, and she was no longer whole.
How would she ever face Anthros? Granted, all she had to do, she figured, was scratch his paw and he would be dead, but without her wyrd, how in the nine worlds would she ever get close to him?
The thought plagued her until her treading feet struck against something hard. She looked down to see a root poking through the edge of the well, and into Elivigar. She rested her feet on it, and stood.
“There’s a root here,” she told the elves. “Get on it, we can move faster.”
The three elves followed her lead, and with the help of the root, the going was easier. She pulled the God Slayer from her back, and used it to help her cross the root. Her hands slipped along the scratches born into the length of the handle, and she wondered what could have caused it? Where had that bit of the staff gone?
Leona heard a great, resounding boom through the icy plains, and jumped. The battle stopped immediately, hands wreathed with fire promptly fizzled out, giants froze in mid-strike allowing the last sizzle of hammer-thrown lightning to echo hollowly through the winter chill.
As one, everyone turned to see where the sound had come from, but it was impossible to tell because darkness swooped across Eget Row like a tidal wave of blackness and terror. It was as if the Void had snuffed out the light of the Ever After.
Through the darkness, Leona was able to make out the form of the great wolf, Anthros, high above Eget Row, drifting above the Ever After in the darkness that had descended on them so completely.
Hundreds of cheers erupted from the throats of the frost giants, deafening in the silence that had previously rang in her ears. With renewed vigor, the frost giants attacked. The harbingers weren’t ready, they were still gazing at the distant Ever After, now darkened from the attack. They were in a terrible trance at the leaves falling from the great tree, and were in no condition to defend themselves.
With the sound of several crunching thuds and goopy squelches, the giants slaughtered them. When Leona turned back, it was to see the icy ground covered smeared with blood that ran thick and hot across the ice; gore lay about her in pink pulp, mashed between giant toes, and clinging to giant fists. Fragments of bone and red mist had peppered the snowy drifts in a scene so macabre, that Leona’s mind could barely make sense of it, but Hafaress understood what it meant. He was used to battle, and his mind calculated their losses immediately. Leona let him, because her mind had gone numb. She couldn’t think about what had happened, about the loss, the gore. She felt that if she reflected too heavily on her loss, she would lose herself to the darkness screaming in terror in her mind.
A giant rounded on her, his hand lifting high, but before he ever got the chance to land a blow, a strange moaning whir came from farther in the icy plains, and the blue giant was snatched up in powerful, serpentine jaws.
Gorjugan tossed the giant into the air, and when the frost giant fell screaming and terrified, the snake opened his mouth, and the giant vanished inside.
Gorjugan shook his head, and turned his dead, black eyes on Leona. Those eyes seemed to penetrate into her depths, and the part of her that was Hafaress squirmed, vying for release to end the serpent once and for all. She gripped the hammer harder, and met the threat of the darkling god.
“She’s mine,” he hissed.
In a thunder of feet on ice and snow, the giants fled.
“So you’ve come,” Gorjugan said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since the very first time I heard Baba Yaga’s prophecy.”
Leona didn’t respond. Instead, she held the hammer up and yelled the word of power “fulgur!” lightning streamed from the sky, alighting across the hammer. She struck forward with the hammer, and the lightning lanced toward Gorjugan’s head.
Could it be that easy? One blow and she would have the darkling god. One strike of lightning sent from the hammer could end this all.
But she’d underestimated the speed of Gorjugan. The snake slipped under the lightning, and lanced toward Leona. She barely managed to dodge out of the way, hoping that Gorjugan would lodge his teeth into the ice. But he was too quick for such an error, and he brought his head up in time to avoid a collision with the ground. He struck at her again, and she rolled. While she managed to miss his teeth, the snake had knocked her sideways with his head, and she slipped across the ice for several yards. Her legs and arms tangled in odd ways as she tumbled. She lost hold of the hammer a time or two, but had managed to grapple with the weapon, carrying it with her until she could at last grab it.
There was no time to get up, the snake came at her again, and Leona called out to the lightning once more. The snake shied away from the forked storm she sent raging from the end of the hammer. She didn’t halt. Leona called to the lightning time and time again, feeling the electricity hum through the hammer until her arm felt numb. During the storm, she was able to stand.
But it was working. She hadn’t actually struck Gorjugan with any of the lightning, but he was on the retreat.
Leona took a breath, her arm singing with the thrum of power that surged from the Void.
Then Gorjugan opened his mouth and teeth snapped down from the roof of his mouth. They gleamed silver in the illumination of lightning.
“I came prepared,” Gorjugan said. “Encased in metal from the God Slayer.”
Leona shook her head. “That won’t work.”
“Would you like to try it out?” Gorjugan’s tongue slithered from his mouth, as if he were laughing at her. Gorjugan lifted the tip of his tail in an attack that Leona wasn’t expecting. He switched his tail at her, knocking her to the side. She landed in a puff of snow, and Gorjugan struck wide, his teeth barely missing her arm. In fact, Leona could feel the press of his lips against her leg, and worried that the teeth had stabbed into her, even just a bit.
She tumbled through the snow, seeking the safe passage of ice. She had to get cover. The snake was too big for her. She didn’t know how to fight this. She ran for the ice, but the tail switched again, tossing her further into the snowy fields.
The scream of ravens sounded then, and a great hiss tore from Gorjugan’s lips. She caught a glimpse of the ravens hammering down on Gorjugan one after the other, striking at his eyes, digging their talons in as he swept his head back and forth violently. They clung to him, their beaks pecking at his eyes.
Leona had a choice, attack him while he was confused, or seek coverage against his teeth. His tail churned around him, lashing the snow haphazardly. If she dashed in now to attack, there was a good chance that she would be crushed under his enormous body. Instead, she sought the safety of the ice plains. She slipped and slid across the ice toward the nearest boulder, and waited.
She could see his head churning above a cloud of snow his thrashing kicked up. The ravens were nothing but a shadow clinging to his head. She saw the moment they departed, winging into the sky to circle overhead.
“Leona,” a familiar voice called from behind her.
She gasped and turned. Her eyes landed upon a familiar form that thundered dread through her slight frame. It was a dark elf. She was tall, slender, with silvery hair and gray skin. Upon her back rested a moon scepter that glowed with a pale, silver-white light.
“Daniken,” Leona whispered, gripping the hammer tighter. She stood.
Daniken held out a hand to stall her attack. “Hear me out,” she said. “I was wrong.”
“Yes, you were. And your actions destroyed it all!”
Daniken shook her head. “I can’t fix what I did, but I can help you now.”
Leona’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I trust you?”
Daniken shrugged. “You shouldn’t trust me. If I were you, I’d
kill me on the spot, but we need to act fast. Gorjugan is blinded. He will likely sense the hammer, but I can discharge some of the moon scepter around his face, distract him, and you can attack.”
“Again, how do I know that you’ll do as you say and not kill me?” Leona wondered where Daniken had gotten another moon scepter, but she pushed the thought aside. It was likely she’d taken it from another elf at some point.
“I don’t have time to convince you,” Daniken said. “I like to think there was a time before you killed me . . . twice, that you and I could have been friends. Trust that Daniken.”
“Oh, the Daniken that was plotting to use me against my sister? Yea, she was trustworthy all right.”
“He’s coming. Hide here for a moment,” the dark elf said. She slipped her glassy moon scepter from her back, and stepped forward. Her fingers drummed against the staff, and silver light bloomed from the tip, streaming toward the darkling’s head.
Leona didn’t trust Daniken, with good reason. Every time she’d trusted the dark elf, it had ended in disaster. She’d been the reason the shadow plague had overwhelmed Abagail in the Fey Forest, and she’d been banking on it to open a scepter with her dying blood. She’d tried time and again to kill Leona after Leona had killed Daniken in the struggle with Abagail. But if she could keep Gorjugan distracted enough for Leona to strike, she didn’t have to trust her, just use her distraction.
Gorjugan had stopped thrashing, but Leona could hear the sound of his slithering through the snow like a great wind blowing through a glade. He was looking for her there, where he’d thrown her.
Daniken thrummed her fingers again, shooting another pulse of light at Gorjugan, egging him closer to the icy plains. Through the miasma of snow, Leona saw him drawing closer. His great green body rippled through the white snow, parting the puffs and drifts before his arrow-head. His eyes were glazed with white, trying to heal the lacerations the ravens had left there.
Twilight of the Gods (The Harbingers of Light Book 7) Page 9
