The Broken God (Legends of Fyrsta Book 3)

by Sabrina Flynn

  He tugged on his braided beard. “We don’t, but we do count on friends to watch our backs.”

  “You and the Sylph are friends?”

  “Aye, me and her go way back.”

  Righteous indignation lit her pale eyes, but it faded, turning into a laugh. “I think Marsais is rubbing off on you. The only thing I wonder now is, who was mad first?”

  “A drunk will find another drunk as fast as a fly to dung.”

  “Spoken like a poet.”

  “Just so I’m the fly,” he said.

  “I don’t see wings on you.”

  A laugh rumbled from his throat. He eyed her pointed ears. “You sure you’re not Nuthaanian?”

  “I’d be the shortest of your kin ever to walk the realms.”

  “If we survive this, I’ll make you an honorary clanswoman.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what that would entail.”

  “Lots of ale, boastful tales, and the right to ask any woman to borrow her Oathbound for the night. With the man’s permission of course.”

  Acacia clucked her tongue and gave a quick shake of her head. “And you wonder why the rest of the realms think you barbarians.”

  “Asking is more of a formality,” he admitted. “With as hot as our blood runs, the last thing we need is to add jealously to the mix. As long as a man sets his boots at the door, and not on the hearth, what’s a good tumble between friends?”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She sounded dubious.

  “We could put it to practice.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “No harm in asking.” He knocked his pipe against the rail, clearing the ash and cinder, before tucking it through his belt. “I’ll leave you to your prayer and meditation.”

  “Good luck with your own.”

  Oenghus bared his teeth. “I’m sure there’s at least one woman on board who’d like a good, hard tumble to pass the time.”

  “And if that fails?”

  “I’ll pick a fight with the crew.”

  “I’ll chain you to the oars myself,” she warned.

  “Anything to get your hands on me.” As he swaggered away, her laugh touched his ears.

  Chapter Four

  Morigan Freyr walked over a red field. The once virgin snow was trampled and stained with blood. Screams filled her ears. She bent over a dying warrior. He clutched a hand to his gut, holding the slick, ropey cords of his insides. Desperate eyes pleaded with her.

  There was no way to know on what side he had fought, but she could not leave him in agony. She laid her hands on his ravaged gut. Closing her eyes, she summoned the Lore, and her awareness plunged into his broken body. With a mender’s touch, she directed the Gift, but the wounding was too far gone. The damage too great.

  Morigan opened her eyes. Mist clouded her vision. “May you piss in the ol’River,” she said.

  The soldier laughed, or tried to; instead, blood bubbled from his lips. He shuddered, and went still.

  Morigan wiped her hands on her smock. It more resembled a butcher’s apron than a healer’s. She moved on to the next warrior. A mere lad. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, sliding into a gruesome mess. There was not much else left of his face. He died before she could even summon the Lore.

  She hurried to the next. The dying came in all sorts. Some lay quiet as if they knew what was coming and wanted to practice. Others struggled and fought the Lady Death’s touch. This soldier thrashed. Her leg had been cleaved off at the hip. Morigan pressed her hands to the ghastly shreds, pouring herself into the task.

  The soldier’s spirit bled from her body, leaving an empty shell. Morigan felt as though her head were in ice. Gathering her inner sight, she scrambled back along the fading tether to her own body. She opened her eyes, and retched into the snow. It was dangerous work, healing a dying patient. Some healers lost all sense of direction, becoming trapped in the dead, never to return to their own bodies. The sensible healers would leave long before death approached, but she’d always fought to the last.

  Violent shivers wracked her body. She sucked in a breath, and stood. She did not have the energy for last rites.

  Morigan gazed over the battlefield. Fallen soldiers cried for help—all on the verge of death. She could not save them all, but she would try, because that was her way.

  Warmth trickled from her ears. But other than that line of heat, she was numb from the crown of her nose to the tips of her toes. Morigan looked down at her frozen hands. They were covered in blood. She focused on those hands, and forced her fingers to curl; it felt as if her bones were cracking.

  Morigan’s left arm throbbed, and she swayed, catching herself on a dying man. She blinked down at his face. He was familiar. She searched her memory for an answer, but when one came, it made no sense. It was the guard she had broken during the battle outside the council chamber, and now she watched him die. Not of broken bones, but of a severed artery.

  Instead of reaching for her smock, she rubbed a hand over her eyes, trying to tear the veil of exhaustion. But it only painted gore on her face. Everything was washed with blood—the blood of the men she had failed. Morigan Freyr had not saved one soul this day.

  More warriors screamed for her attention. Agony echoed in her numb ears, but she was only one woman—the sole healer on a battlefield of dying.

  The only one left standing.

  That thought pricked Morigan’s instincts. She looked beyond the dying, to the grey horizon, to the fog that washed over the snow and corpses. Every warrior was near death, crying for her help.

  “Impossible,” she breathed. No battlefield had ever looked like this. Instead of racing to the next patient, Morigan eyed the gloom. Of all the injured on the battlefield, that fog looked most alive, like a breathing, irritated thing.

  A touch dragged her from her thoughts. A weak, begging hand tugged at the hem of her skirt. She took a breath, and looked at the half-dead man at her feet. Oenghus. His black beard was frozen with ice, and his lips were blue. Each breath gurgled and bubbled out blood. He had a hole in his lungs. For a moment, she hesitated. And in that span of a breath, he breathed his last.

  She frowned at the father of her children. He was as vexing in death as he had been in life, and she loved him down to her roots.

  She was not surprised to see him; dead berserkers were a common enough sight—expected, even. Every single time he had charged off to battle, she had expected him to return on his shield.

  Rather than weep, she found his corpse comforting. Better for him to die on a battlefield than for her to watch him waste away in bed. A warm calm settled over her mind. And then everything fell away. The dead turned to flurries and deep drifts, and cries of the dying turned to howls of terror.

  Morigan blinked. She was not standing, but lying on cold ground. A dense fog smothered her, and thin, ethereal shadows with burning eyes swarmed around her. Fingers caressed her skin with a whisper of a touch. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, forcing air into her lungs as she fortified her mind.

  Instinct told her to flee, but Morigan Freyr was no timid healer. She had stared down Death nearly every day of her life, standing her ground against hordes of Wedamen, Forsaken, and Voidspawn, and pushing her way through battlefields to reach the dying. And through it all, she had kept a clear head.

  The illusion of an endless battlefield had shattered when she was calm. That thought stayed with her, and as the Shadows hissed vile things in her ears, she held onto that knowledge like a shield. If the phantoms had intended to kill her, she’d already be dead.

  Morigan forced her heart to a slow, even pace. When she opened her eyes, there was no fear. But the cold was no illusion. Her teeth knocked together, and she found that strangely reassuring. She shifted and tried to rise. Searing pain cut through her arm, and she fell back to the snow, landing beside a stiff corpse.

  Snow. Why was she lying in snow? A wave of disorientation rocked her. She had been in the castle, fighting in the corridors, and now
memory rushed in with beating wings. An ice elemental and a battle of steel and runes. Yasimina and Sidonie had attacked her. Sidonie was dead, or at least close to it, but not Yasimina. That memory pierced her heart. Once she had called Yasimina friend, and now, the woman was an enemy of the worst sort—a Bloodmagi whom she had to thank for the pain in her arm.

  Another flash of memory played behind her eyes. Of Taal Greysparrow falling to a blade; of a spear impaling Shimei Aleeth, and of Eldred flying through the air. Was the battle imagined or real? At the moment, none of it mattered.

  Cradling her arm, she sat up, and squinted into the gloom. Screams echoed in the fog. These, she thought, were real, coming and going, fading and nearing. The phantoms lingered, their whispers hissed, and their eyes burned. She dared not look at those hungry shadows.

  With a chatter of teeth, she summoned the Lore, and traced a crude but adequate air rune, binding it to spirit. A light breeze swirled around her body. The weave pushed back the fog, and the phantoms retreated.

  These phantoms were not Voidspawn, that much she knew; neither were they Forsaken. The things were partly there, able to brush and touch, but only with a whisper of corporeality.

  Fighting back the urge to lie down and sleep, Morigan climbed to her feet. Her memories were as hazy as the gloom. The last she remembered was fighting inside the castle. She kicked at the snow, searching for the stone that she was sure must be underneath. But the crunch of her boots gave way to earth. She was outside, but she had no memory of getting there. Or where there was. How long had it been?

  A scream bounced in the fog, and a man dressed in black-and-crimson livery emerged from the swirl. His eyes were wide and staring. A knot of phantoms clutched at his back, following on his heels. She recognized the stablehand, and shouted his name, but he did not see her.

  The man ran past, howling his madness.

  An ache twisted her heart. She had left the boy Zoshi outside with the guards. Children, she knew, were more resourceful than most adults, but every motherly instinct she possessed urged her to shout his name. Not here; not now, in this fog. As she wandered through the fog, she told herself that the boy had run.

  Sobs reached her ears, and she paused, searching the fog, wondering if it was illusion or real. Morigan edged forward until she found the source. A cluster of phantoms were gathered over a trembling man like flies on rotten flesh. She hastened over, holding her weave with a steady mind.

  At her approach, the phantoms turned on her with hungry eyes. She ignored them, and slowly they parted, oozing to the side to reveal their victim. It was a guard, a grown man curled into a ball and hiding his face like a child. He wept bitterly.

  She knelt, and placed her hand on his shoulder. At her touch, he flinched. As the fog cleared around him, he looked into her eyes. Despair lived there.

  For all she knew, the guard might be loyal to Tharios, but she could not leave him—not in such a state. “It’s not real,” she said firmly, and remembered his face. “Timothy, isn’t it?”

  “Morigan?” He sounded unsure.

  “Yes, on your feet.” No one, save Oenghus, argued with the healer when she used that steely voice. The guard was no exception. He stood, and when he raised his sword she pushed it back down. If the phantoms fed off fear, then they would surely feed off anger.

  “You have to stay calm, Timothy. Do not attack.”

  At first he jumped at every shadow, but soon he grew more confident. As they traveled through the murk, she gathered more of the lost to her. But the survivors were few, and the dead littered the snow. Some had been wounded, but most looked unharmed, save for faces twisted with terror. It was as if the phantoms had sucked them dry.

  Reapers fed off blood, and when the Voidspawn feasted, they grew in strength. Were these phantoms similar? Would fear and hate give these phantoms substance? With that thought, she began studying the fog and phantoms more closely. Some of the shadows were more distinct than others. They bore a corporeality that the others lacked. The possibility that these creatures might take shape disturbed her.

  A stone wall rose out of the fog, and Morigan stopped, placing a steadying hand against its surface. She was cold and hurt, and for every soldier she added to her group it took more of her concentration to hold the weave.

  Timothy hastened to her side. “Are you all right?”

  “No, likely not,” she said, looking to the wide eyes of the other survivors. There could be others in the mist. Brinehilde and Zoshi might be weeping in the cold. But none of her group were in a state to search for more survivors, least of all herself.

  “Stay close to the wall,” she whispered. Keeping her good hand on the stone, she let it guide her until she came to a door. The fog filled the hallway too.

  Morigan focused on her weave and drew more of the Gift, strengthening the breeze. A strong wind whipped past her hair, pushed into the hallways, and parted the mist. She recognized this passage; it led to one of the kitchens.

  She closed her eyes, focusing, until an orb of air runes surrounded her group. It was enough. She looked to each guard and servant in turn. “These phantoms are Tharios’ doing,” she stated bluntly, gauging each guard’s reaction. “I don’t care whose side you think you are on—I won’t ask. Only a fool would think that there is any kind of future as long as this fog is here.”

  She did not demand an answer, but looked each man and woman in the eye. When each nodded, she placed a hand on the wall, and used it to keep her upright as she set off through the fog.

  The kitchen doors were barred, a standard protocol when the castle was under attack. Morigan knocked, a rhythmic rap that only castle residents knew. But now the precaution seemed foolish: the castle was under attack by its own guards.

  As the bar scraped on the other side, she braced herself for a fight, not knowing what she would find. The door cracked, and a beefy cook with a butcher’s knife stared through the opening. Relief shone in the man’s eye. He was called the Ogre by his staff, but Morigan knew his real name. “Thank the gods, Noa.”

  At her words, he ushered the survivors inside, and the door slammed shut on their heels. The cooks and bakers rushed forward to help the wounded and cold, and Morigan sank onto a bench.

  It appeared that the kitchen staff were all accounted for, but her dim hope that Zoshi and Brinehilde had found refuge in the kitchens was crushed; neither one was present, nor were any of her fellow Wise Ones.

  “What is going on?” Noa demanded, draping a heavy cloak over her shoulders.

  That, she thought, was an excellent question. She had no answer for him.

  “What do we do?” another cook asked.

  The kitchens were the Ogre’s domain—his power and confidence did not extend beyond its walls. Everyone in the kitchens, from scullery maid to soldier, looked to Morigan for direction. But she could barely think. Exhaustion had left her with a sense of floating while being heavy all at once. Unfortunately, there was no time to rest.

  Morigan closed her eyes as she probed her arm. Pain shot along the nerve and took root in her head. “I need bandage—something to splint this arm. Two wooden spoons will do and a good tug.” As she issued orders, Morigan unbuttoned her sleeve and carefully rolled it back over the broken bone. She froze.

  Inky tendrils blossomed on her flesh like a spider’s web. The taint followed the path of her veins. “Never mind.” There was no time. Yasimina had left her mark. The cold had slowed its taint, but now it seeped towards her heart.

  “What is that?” asked Timothy.

  “Poison.” Morigan struggled to her feet. “I need to get to my infirmary.”

  The poison crawled through her body like oil. It was the source of her exhaustion and her muddled mind. Morigan gathered her wavering strength and summoned the Lore, reaching for the currents of Life. With one hand, she traced a crude air rune, a simple weave that swirled around her body. She cracked opened the door.

  The corridor was not precisely empty. Morigan could not call th
e fog lifeless, it seemed to breathe, to search and sniff like a hunting thing. It waited for her.

  She stepped out of the kitchens, and wispy threads of air pushed the fog back. Morigan took a breath, and then another, waiting. No visions assaulted her. She turned to her waiting escort. Although it would stretch her to hold one weave, let alone two, she’d take that risk for an extra pair of hands. She motioned and Timothy stepped into the hallway.

  The air was frigid, and it cooled her cheeks. Whether the chill was from the fog or the elemental, she did not know, and currently, she did not care. Morigan couldn’t afford the luxury of thought. All her focus was bent towards holding the weave and placing one foot in front of the other.

  Their footsteps echoed strangely in the gloom, amplified and muffled, thrown around the stone like a child’s toy marble. A small voice in the back of her mind whispered with a healer’s cold precision that it was likely an affect of the poison. She shook her head, pushing away the murkiness to grasp that voice. Her vision cleared, and the fog swirled, revealing a lump on the ground.

  Habit compelled her to bend and check the woman’s pulse. But she was dead, drained like the others, skin stretched and dry.

  “You’ll never make it if you stop for everyone.” Timothy’s voice drifted from far away.

  Morigan looked up to find concern on his face. “If I didn’t, then you would be dead.” She pushed herself up, and moved on.

  The healer could find her infirmary blindfolded, but still, she moved with caution, tense as a soldier on the front line. She was not the only Wise One who could weave a simple air rune. The Unspoken might be lurking in this horror.

  Footsteps echoed—her own, Timothy’s, and another’s. Morigan tugged Timothy to a quick halt. The footsteps ceased. She edged forward, in front of the soldier, straining for that whisper over stone.

  Another corridor, another corner, and those footsteps still haunted them. Morigan glanced over her shoulder. Timothy was as taut as a board, eyes wide with the fear before a fight. The fog gathered behind, and a phantom drifted at his back. For a moment, like a flash of light, a face appeared from that shadow: sharp ears and slanted eyes that burned with cold.