by Aaron Crash
The barbarian smelled like sex, he tasted of her own lingering kharo smoke, but then his own flavor eclipsed all. His scent overwhelmed her, his strong, masculine smell. His muscles were like iron cables under his soft skin. She liked the scratch of his beard, his soft, full lips, and she liked his tongue in her mouth. She felt his cock dig into her belly.
She felt her own juices leak down her thighs. After the fight, the stress of that moment, she wanted to be bent over and fucked without mercy.
But, no, that couldn’t be.
Even kissing this remarkable man was a mistake. She cleared her throat and stepped back. “We won’t speak of that kiss, Ymir. Ever.”
“Much of what is to happen tonight must be kept secret,” he agreed. He wasn’t smiling, or laughing, and she was grateful for that. He knew what needed to be done. “We will blame the deaths of these three on Gulnash. We will call on the rite of the Iyyag Gallrogg. And I will face the Betrayer. He will die tonight.”
“But what of his ring?” Della asked.
Ymir raised his own hand. “I have rings of my own.”
Della hissed out her displeasure. This barbarian with a dusza would never be tamed. What should she do with him?
Kill him?
Or join him?
Chapter Thirty-Six
YMIR STOOD LEANING on his battle ax near Gatha’s desk. On his left hand were four of the Akkiric Rings: the mysterious Black Ice Ring, the Yellow Scorch Ring, the Winter Flame Ring, and the newest addition, the Gather Breath. He’d thought at first that he needed to wear them on two different hands, but that wasn’t the case. And they magically adjusted to fit the wearer.
Ymir had come ready because there was going to be a fight, and it wasn’t going to be on the sands. The final battle of the Kurzig Durgha was going to be fought in the Librarium Citadel, with a crowd of stricken royalty and gray, sleepy faces, shocked by the murders of three of Thera’s elite.
Della hadn’t just known the Obanathy cantrips, she’d known Moons devocho spells that would hide the deeds there. And Gulnash had been all over that library, studying, gathering arcane knowledge, which he used to craft the Crystal Null Ring. Cebor had been there as well, sniffing after Gulnash.
The investigators would sense both Gulnash and Cebor, and Della would do her best to convince them of the story they’d concocted.
Gulnash the Betrayer found it all so amusing, standing on the crest of the school, in the Librarium.
The Vempor Acadius of the Holy Theranus Empire was there, with his personal guard, and there was King Velis IX of the Sorrow Coast Kingdom. The Swamp Coast visitors congregated near the front, led by a weeping Nellybelle Tucker, a sneering Darisbeau Cujan, and a variety of witchy warrior women in black. Professor Linnylynn Albatross stood back, watching with bright eyes. The rest of the contingent were orcs, woken by the ringing of the bells from all four towers and the call for the Iyyag Gallrogg. Della had made sure to wake all for this event.
More witnesses and more weapons.
Because of Gulnash and his contingent of orcs, loyal to him. Dozens of his horde orcs filled the second-floor gallery, along with humans and elves that would keep them in check if those Gruul stepped out of line.
They all stood on the precipice of war, as violent as the merfolk attack.
The Honored Princept looked stately in her new Studiae Magica robes, with a single sword at her side.
The kiss had been a surprise, sure, but Ymir couldn’t consider what it might mean. They had more important things to do.
The Princept called out, “I call the Iyyag Gallrogg, and I call it on Gulnash the Betrayer. His lust for power did not stay his sword when he butchered the king of Greenhome, Shlak’s wife, Ghrinna, and Jiabelle Josen of Josentown.”
Murmurings and gasps went through the crowd. Ymir’s women were there. Lillee’s face was tearstained. For now, they didn’t know the truth. The clansman would tell them, in time, but for now, it was important that everyone believe the story the Princept was spinning.
She couldn’t tell the truth, that she’d killed a good number of the Midnight Guild’s leaders before they could kill her.
Gulnash, with his death’s head mace over his shoulder, stood with an amused look on his face. “And why would I kill those three?”
“Why indeed?” Della stepped up to him. She looked so small compared to the seething violence of his massive frame. “You made a point of insulting them when you came into the Reception Room. You don’t care about the rituals of your people. You made secret deals with Shlak, and you filled Greenhome’s coffers with gold, and perhaps when you asked to bed Jiabelle Josen, she declined. Who knows? But I’ve cast Flow magic. I saw what you did.”
Gulnash laughed. “And this is how you mean to undo me, cunt? With lies?”
She leaned in close and said something that Ymir couldn’t hear. But he saw her lips. And she said a very definite yes.
Ha. He loved that Princept.
The Betrayer roared, “I don’t care if I need to fight on the sands, or if I need to fight here, because I am ready to murder you all. Did I kill those three people? No. Would I have? Yes. Especially Shlak’s bitch of a wife.”
An old woman stepped forward, scowling. Ymir knew her. She was Yannc Winslo of the Alumni Consortium. “Do you admit to being in the Librarium, Gulnash? For you have been here, I know, and you have been on the sixth floor. As had King Cebor. You said you didn’t kill them, but you would’ve?”
“I came to this place to kill,” Gulnash leered. “And for other reasons.” He threw Ymir a meaningful look.
The Akkiric Rings.
“What other reasons?” Yannc demanded.
Gulnash stepped forward, sweeping his mace around. “This is a place of history, Aegel Akkridor’s westernmost castle, a place of power and lust. It will all be mine eventually. And so, let’s not tarry, for orcs do not live as long as other races. Or they haven’t until me.” He grinned, and the Sunfire lanterns’ light winked off his steel tusk. “I accept the claim of Iyyag Gallrogg, but I will not be executed. Try, and my men will slaughter you all. I demand combat. I demand three on three to the death, here, in this place. Can’t you feel it? Aegel Akkridor’s citadel longs for blood!”
“I will be one of the three,” Shlak demanded. “You butchered my wife. I will butcher you!”
Gatha went to volunteer, but both Jennybelle and Tori grabbed her and shushed her. She was in no condition to fight.
Della nodded. “I will fight as well.”
“Yes, you will, you lying cunt,” Gulnash hissed. He turned, walking through the room, raising his mace. “I would have loved to kill war’s wet cunt, but she’s not the princess of the pits. Not any longer. She’s some book girl not worth my time.”
It took Tori, Lillee, and Jennybelle to keep Gatha from storming forward. The she-orc could have easily bashed her way free, but she didn’t want to hurt her friends.
Gulnash laughed at her. Then he grinned with spit dripping from his steel spike. “But there is someone else here that I want to kill.” The Betrayer stopped and pointed his mace at Ymir. “You, the barbarian with a dusza. You are the only asshole not an orc that might one day stop me. Let’s have it be this day or never.”
Ymir walked through the crowd and stood with Della and Shlak in the center of the Librarium. The clansman was going to make this a quick fight, as quick as he could, with his new ring. This was going to be a pleasure because the Betrayer thought he had every advantage.
Gatha continued to struggle.
Shlak, standing with shield and naked sword, called over to her. “Do not fear, Gatha of Ssunash. I will avenge your mother.”
“I have no mother, old man,” Gatha snarled in a savage voice. “I have no father. I am Gatha of the Majestrial now. And Ymir will kill the Betrayer because he is a liar and a murderer, and he has betrayed the rituals that we hold sacred.”
Shlak clanged his sword against his shield. “We do hold our rituals sacred, and while this i
s the Iyyag Gallrogg, it is also the Kurzig Durgha. The winner will have the right to rule the three cities of the Blood Steppes.” The orc chieftain paused before shouting, “May the night never end! May the day never begin!”
People murmured, wondering what that meant. But Ymir knew. Shlak was as much a part of the Midnight Guild as his wife.
Gulnash let out a howl. “The day of the orc is dawning. Oodagg and Orgorr, to me! You, my brothers, will join me. And when we murder these three, we will return to the Blood Steppes, we will take our horde, and we shall conquer the world. For it is not fight and die. It is fight or die. And we say death to death! Let the age of the orc begin!”
His men began to chant, all around them, the three words. “Death to death! Death to death! Death to death!”
For the orcs, it was the ultimate sacrilege, especially in a Kurzig Durgha. For the whole point was to be reminded that life was short, especially for the Gruul, and you didn’t fight death, you fought yourself, so when you passed on, you left behind a legacy you could be proud of.
Gulnash’s orcs were getting out of control. Gulnash fingered his ring, smiling.
Ymir saw it...he really did think he’d live forever. Could the Crystal Null Ring do that? Or could all the rings working together grant the wearer immortality? Was that how Aegel Akkridor cheated death for that long?
Della nodded at Issa Leel.
“Jelu fascinara!” Professor Leel’s ice magic swept up into the air, freezing the rails of the second level and bringing snow to the ground floor. The blast of cold and the thunder of her voice silenced them all. She created a fence line of ice around the center of the citadel, and it was only her and the six warriors inside: Ymir, Della, and Shlak on one side. Gulnash, Oodagg, and Orgorr on the other. They had their new arena.
The elven professor grimaced. “We all know why this Kurzig Durgha was called, so let’s not be naïve. This contest will be to the death. The winner will enjoy their freedom and all crimes will be dropped. The sanctity of the tournament has been called into question, and let blood be the answer.”
“Blood! Blood! Blood!” Gulnash’s orcs chanted.
“Enough!” Gulnash thundered. He pointed his mace at Ymir. “Come, fool dog, come and meet your death.”
Ymir smiled. “My death does not look like you, Betrayer. I’ve had a shit or two that were a far better match.”
Issa Leel went to talk.
“Shut your whore mouth, elf bitch!” Gulnash roared. He barked out the sacred litany, but he twisted it. “The war is short, but our lives are forever! Fight or die!”
“Fight or die!” Oodagg and Orgorr shouted.
Shlak still had the integrity to scream, “Fight and die!”
Ymir and Della were silent because they’d come to fight, not chant.
Gulnash roared and raised the Crystal Null Ring. As it flashed with a brilliant light, Ymir felt the magic in his dusza drain out of him, but Gulnash couldn’t wipe him out completely. Shlak disrupted the Betrayer’s concentration, rushing him, roaring murder, but could they really trust the chieftain of Ssunash to kill his ally?
Ymir was left with little magic. It shouldn’t matter since he’d fought the merfolk without magic, but the clansman had grown used to his spells. Dammit. He still had a little power in his dusza, and it might be enough for two spells, if he used his rings.
The two remaining Gruul warriors charged the clansman and the Princept.
“Della,” Ymir spat. “Gulnash stole my magic and here I am dressed in elk leather. Perhaps you can give me some additional protection?”
The Princept sighed. “I’m always coddling my students. Ignis armatus!”
Instead of ice armor, Ymir felt the air around him burst into flames, and he went forward, cloaked in fire. Lightning crackled around Della’s lithe form as she leapt into the air, slashing the sword out of Oodag’s hand. She then engaged Orgorr.
Oodag called forth an ax made of ice, and he met Ymir, ax to ax. They traded blows, but each blocked the other. Ymir felt a bit of energy left in his dusza, just a bit, and he felt the amwabs in the air, in Oodag’s armor. He decided to heat that armor up with the Yellow Scorch.
Ymir chopped at the Gruul warrior, but Oodag blocked with his ice ax even as his own cuirass began to glow, cooking his skin. Oodag retreated, putting his ice axe on his armor, but that wasn’t going to save the orc. He went to dispel the magic, but Ymir didn’t give him the chance.
Ymir froze the moisture in Oodag’s mouth with the Winter Flame Ring. That was it. He was out of power.
Oodag was a brave sort, and he narrowed his eyes. He came forward, drawing two long daggers from his belt even as his flesh smoked from his burning armor and ice filled his mouth. However, both slowed him.
Ymir was faster. He brought his ax down through Oodag’s skull, splitting it down to his chin. The clansman turned to see how Della was faring.
Her opponent, Orgorr, fought in ice armor, his blades covered in frost, and he was fast, a magnificent swordsman, but he was facing an assassin of the Silent Scream. Della dispatched Orgorr with a whirlwind of lightning and sword strokes. Floating out of reach, she sent arcs of crackling energy into the orc before falling out of the air, cutting him as she fell—her blade clanged off his helmet, stunning him, before she cut through an arm, sliced open his belly and chopped his leg off at the knee. He tumbled forward, which brought his neck into her blade.
Orgorr fell, beheaded, in a puddle of his own gore-splattered pieces.
Gulnash roared and bashed Shlak in his armor, sending the chieftain staggering back.
The Betrayer screamed, “Lutum armatus!” From the second floor, books were ripped from shelves, paper shredded from bindings, and all the pages and covers swept around Gulnash, thickening to become armor.
Once his book armor was complete, Gulnash barked, “Lutum devocho!” The scatter of volumes came together to form a golem, which plucked Oodag’s sword from the floor.
Gatha let out a strangled cry at the loss of the tomes.
Shlak stepped back, blood leaking from his mouth. One of his tusks had been smashed off.
Ymir glanced over and nodded at Della, and the Princept nodded back.
This was their chance to kill the Betrayer.
Gulnash laughed. “Fight or die, barbarian!” He raised the Crystal Null Ring. Again, Ymir felt his dusza empty, and he fell to his knees. Della let out a strangled cry.
Ymir’s flame armor went up in wisps of smoke.
Shlak, instead of engaging the Betrayer, turned and strode over, raising his sword to cut down Ymir. Gatha was right to leave her dreadful family. The clansman had to wonder at the duplicity of this orc chieftain. Either he’d made a deal with Gulnash, or Shlak’s allegiance to the Midnight Guild was more important than his honor.
Either way, it didn’t matter, and Ymir was about to lose his head.
Della struck like a deadly wind from Shlak’s left. He’d barely noticed she was there until it was too late. She went from her knees to her feet, thrust his shield to the side, and drove her sword through a crack in Shlak’s armor and up into his heart. Her bloody blade emerged from the orc’s back.
She growled into his face. “And so ends Shlak of Ssunash’s very mediocre rule.”
Shlak would’ve gored her face with his tusk if he hadn’t lost it to Gulnash. The irony wasn’t lost on Ymir.
However, he was having trouble getting to his feet.
And he couldn’t warn Della about the book golem. The strange man made from ruined books danced over on its paper feet and cut the Princept down the back. She had enough strength to pull her blade from Shlak’s heart, but she didn’t have the magic to dispel the golem. Nor could she heal herself. She stepped back on unsure feet and barely managed to parry the golem’s next thrust.
Gulnash roared with laughter as the Ssunash chieftain slumped to the floor in his own blood. The audience watching the spectacle were either howling for blood or stunned into silence.
G
ulnash continued to laugh. “What is the matter, barbarian? Where is your magic? This is a magic school, yet you are powerless. Your lying Princept gave you the fire armor, but she’s lost her magic as well. How will you protect yourself from my spells? Caelum caelarum!”
Gulnash whipped Ymir’s ax from his hands and sent it clattering across the floor, all the way to the ice fence on the far side of their arena.”
“No ax for you, barbarian!” the Betrayer laughed. “Now. You die! Lutum lutarum!”
Gulnash dropped his mace and gestured with his hands, as if he were pulling up the floor. Chunks of marble cracked free, and the Betrayer thrust out his palms, hurling the marble at Ymir, who knelt on one knee, gritting his teeth, but unable to move. He needed an extra second, just a fraction of time to use the Gather Breath Ring.
“Ymir!” Lillee wailed.
“No!” Tori cried.
Jennybelle was silent, as was Gatha, standing outside Professor Leel’s ice fence. But Ymir felt them, felt their souls, and why not? They’d become forever connected in love, in magic, in the thrill of battle.
Ymir curled the fingers of his left hand into a fist, the rings pinching into his skin. Then he felt something...for the first time, he felt the Black Ice Ring burning. It was somehow feeding off the Gather Breath Ring’s energy and all the souls who had given him their essence, both the living and the dead.
The world stopped. All went silent. Ymir glanced up to see the impossible.
Della and the book golem were like statues, swords crossed, and the sparks flaring from where the steel met. Those sparks weren’t disappearing.
Shlak’s blood stopped pouring from his chest.
Gulnash stood with both hands out, casting his Form attack spell.
The air was filled with marble boulders, some the size of Ymir’s head, which would crush him easily. Like everything else, the boulders were frozen in time.
Above, on the second level, stood the drooling orcs of the Betrayer’s horde, crying out for blood and death. On the ground floor, the spectators had wide eyes, looking shocked, looking afraid, from scholar to teacher to Thera’s royalty.
