We bedded down without much conversation—the night didn’t seem fit for talking, and with Frikka startling every couple of minutes, everyone was on edge. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but as night fell, the already sinister-looking forest took on an even more apocalyptic look. What little light made it through the canopy took on a bluish cast, making everything seem darker rather than brightening the shadows. Sleep was long in coming, and from the noises of the others sleeping around me, I guessed that it wasn’t a problem I suffered alone. When I did sleep, my dreams were dark and frightening—filled with animated corpses, dragons, and death.
Yowtgayrr woke me at what passed for dawn in the Darks. “We need to get moving,” he whispered.
“No one woke me to take my turn at watch,” I grumped. The dawn cast the forest with a golden light, although dim to the point of obscurity. As dusky as the dawn’s light was, it painted golden highlights on the forest and washed some of the menace out of the shadows.
“There was no need,” said the Alf. He waved his hand in an arc. “It was a restless night. Plenty of watchers.”
We saddled the horses and packed up in a rush, eating a sparse, cold breakfast of bread and cheese. Meuhlnir pointed to the south. “The northern cliff of the fjord is there.” He moved his hand so that he pointed south-southeast. “The largest city in the Darks is just there. That will be the largest concentration of truykar. Because of that, we ride east, deeper into the forest.”
Veethar nodded in what seemed like satisfaction, but his wife looked pensive and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye.
“If you have information that would change our route, Frikka, now would be a good time,” said Meuhlnir with ill-concealed impatience.
Frikka just shook her head and walked her horse to stand next to Veethar.
Meuhlnir shrugged. “So be it, then.” He turned and led us east at a trot.
Broken branches and stunted trees bordered the glade, all covered in a clinging cloak of green that we had to push through. The forest floor was greyish-black dirt, riddled with knobby roots and littered with old and decaying leaves. Creeping reddish-green vines a couple of inches in diameter ran between the ground, the fallen limbs, and the limbs still in the trees. Long, sharp thorns sprouted every inch or so from the ubiquitous vines, and some of them glistened with a viscous, opaque fluid. The horses seemed to abhor the vines and shied away from them when we moved them too close.
We covered a lot of ground, but after an hour and a half of travel, the underbrush of the forest thickened even more. Dark green vines snagged at the horse’s hooves as they trotted, almost as if the vines were trying to trip the horses. The vines seemed to be cousins of the red monsters back at the glade, except these had no thorns.
“Can you not do something about this underbrush, Veethar?” demanded Meuhlnir.
Veethar looked around, muttering to himself. “Fara til klithar,” he said, and the vines and underbrush started to withdraw but soon shuddered to a halt and reversed direction. Veethar shook his head. “Svepn!” he commanded. The vines shook with violence for a moment and then continued creeping forward.
Veethar looked up and met Meuhlnir’s gaze. “No. They won’t move aside, and they won’t go dormant.”
Meuhlnir grunted. “Can you not command them to wither, to die?”
Veethar looked as if he’d been slapped. “I won’t.”
Meuhlnir sighed with exasperation and shook his head. “Then we must move as best we can.” He peered up at the tiny portion of the sky he could see through the canopy of the trees. “I think we must have passed the city to the south by this time.”
As if that were the cue, the forest around us began to twist and surge. The ground shook, and the underbrush rustled as a rotten stench began to pervade the wood. Something crashed through the underbrush, sounding like it was headed straight toward us.
“Ride!” yelled Frikka, spurring her horse into the fastest pace the forest would allow.
Veethar rode after her. “Fara til klithar!” he yelled as he urged his horse to run faster. The underbrush began its slow withdrawal, and we all kicked our horses into a run and held on for dear life.
Veethar kept commanding the underbrush to move aside as we charged through the gloomy forest. The crashing behind us got louder and louder, and soon we could see the shape of something large, black, and hideous blazing a trail for man-shaped things behind us.
Frikka was riding to the northeast and kept shooting piercing glares at us over her shoulders as if we were not moving fast enough for her.
“Truykar?” I asked, yelling to be heard over the din.
“I don’t know, but it seems likely! The stench!” yelled Meuhlnir.
“Why are we running?”
“No idea how many there are and with this forest, we’d never know until they were on us. We need space—a meadow, a field, anything.”
We continued pushing the horses as the terrain grew more and more hilly. We rode for hours, fear brimming in our blood as foam began to sluff from our horses’ nostrils and mouths. As the hills became rockier, the forest lost its chokehold on the soil, and we began to see bigger and bigger patches of sunlight penetrating the darkness.
We began to gain ground on whatever it was that was following us since the horses could run faster through the areas clear of the clinging, covetous underbrush, and our followers still waded through it. As the foothills petered out, the malignant forest began to give way to grassland, and we finally caught a glimpse of what was pursuing us.
A humongous dead reptile the size of an elephant led an army of truykar. The reptile was shaped like an enormous Komodo dragon, except it had a row of razor-sharp looking spines down its back. Its skin was black and rotting, and its eyes were filmed over and lifeless. The truykar were hideous. Their skin was peeling, black, and gangrenous. Gaping wounds festered and spewed maggots with each lurching, jarring step. Long, stringy hair fell unadorned from their heads and across the withered muscles of their shoulders and necks. Their nails were long and black. Disgusting, decayed meat drooped from their bones, and skin like wizened old, untanned leather hung from the meat. The stench as they broke from the forest was enough to make me want to vomit until my insides dropped on my shoes. It made my eyes tear and water, and my nose ran with snot,
“They shouldn’t be following us!” yelled Sif. “Their unnatural life force is bound to their graves. Why are they chasing us so far?”
Meuhlnir shook his head, a grim expression covering his face. “Something is driving them to chase us. Or someone.”
Frikka looked around with fear in her eyes. “Illa sem yetur!”
Meuhlnir cursed and shook his head, a grim expression on his face.
“Luka?” I asked.
Meuhlnir didn’t pause from his effort to break the all-time record for continuous cursing.
“Turn and fight?”
Meuhlnir jerked his head back and forth without pausing his tirade.
“It’s even more dangerous to stop now,” yelled Mothi.
I threw glances over my shoulders, trying to catch a glimpse of the thing driving the truykar. All I could see was those hideous decayed corpses running, stumbling and, in some cases, crawling after us. “What do we do then? Hope they get tired?”
Still cursing, Meuhlnir shook his head again.
“What then?” I demanded.
Abruptly, Slaypnir shied and darted first to the left and then to the right. A large shadow covered us, and I stared up at the red underbelly of a dragon that seemed to be the size of a football stadium. I drew Kunknir.
“Stay your hand, Aylootr!” shouted a voice from above that sounded like Althyof.
I squinted up at the long, sleek dragon as it slid past in the air like a dolphin swimming through water. The dragon wheeled toward our pursuers, bellowing that basso roar, fraught with subharmonics that set my teeth on edge.
“Althyof! Watch for Briethralak Oolfur!” shouted Meuhlnir, reining Sinir in a tight tur
n to the right.
With a shrieking sound like a fighter jet on full afterburner, the dragon unleashed a billowing stream of reddish-orange fire onto the front ranks of truykar. Their desiccated bodies ignited, and they shuddered to one side or the other, trying to get away, but succeeding only in setting those next to them on fire. As the fire splashed onto the giant dead lizard thing, it shrieked—a sound that reminded me of a pissed-off infant—and then turned and bolted through the truykar, crushing whatever was in its path. Just before it made it to the forest, it collapsed in a charred, twitching mess.
A strange-sounding song rose above the din. The melody was hard to focus on, slipping around in my head like a snake in mud. The dragon roared again, followed by another shrieking jet of red-orange flames into the back of the truykar ranks. The cadence of the haunting melody increased, and the dragon wheeled on its wingtip to the right. It flew over the truykar army spitting flame and lashing its great tail. Every time the tail hit a truykr, a decomposing head flew up and away from the truykr’s decaying body.
The dragon made two more flaming passes and then landed amid the burning truykar with a savage fury. It began thrashing around, biting, and tearing at the revenants and slashing its tail through ranks of the undead. The haunting melody became more strident, and the dragon shrieked and hissed in response. The truykar didn’t even seem to notice the dragon in their midst, they either thrashed around on fire or walked toward our party. The dragon decimated the truykar with ease, spitting fire and decapitating them with abandon. When all the truykar had died their second death, the dragon screamed and leapt into the air.
It twisted its neck back around its shoulder and snapped at the Tverkr riding between the great mounds of its shoulders. The direful diapason grew strident and insistent, disparate harmonies seeming to overlap and compete with one another. The dragon shook its great head and screamed a mournful cry, then leapt into the air. It flew close to the canopy of the forest, its great wedge-shaped head sweeping back and forth as if it were searching for something. Or someone. With an exultant shriek, and the explosive sound of trees being smashed to bits, the dragon slammed its rear talons toward the ground and then beat its wings, fighting for altitude. It looked very much like a hunting kite carrying away its prey. The dragon wheeled in midair and flew toward us, gaining altitude. As its shadow passed over us, it dropped its prey after a convulsive squeeze of its huge talons. A body fell through the air and cratered the ground behind us. The dragon wheeled back toward the forest, diving low toward the treetops again.
The body that lay crumpled in front of us was gangly and desperately lean, not to mention inhuman and strange. Where it had fur, its coat was either gray or brown, and where it didn’t, its skin was pale pink, or rotted and black. Standing, he would have been incredibly tall—fifteen feet at least—and his legs had too many joints. The creature had the head and antlers of a decaying stag, though its teeth were that of a bear or wolf. The torso of the beast was patchy with lusterless fur and pale, diseased skin. Its arms stretched from its hunched shoulders to a three-fingered hand. Each of his fingers was tipped in a wicked-looking talon.
“A wendigo,” I muttered.
Meuhlnir shook his head. “No, Hank, that is one of the many forms the Briethralak Oolfur can assume. Generally, this form is used to travel, but as you can see from the claws and fangs, it can still do quite a bit of damage.”
“One of Luka’s crowd, eh?”
No one wanted to answer that.
“Was this one driving the truykar?” I asked.
“Probably,” said Meuhlnir. “I think Althyof is checking to see if he was the only one.”
The dragon roared in anger and frustration and then wheeled toward us again. It slammed into the ground in the middle of the truykar, its great rear legs compressing to take up the shock of the hard landing. The strange music continued without pause as Althyof slid down the slick-looking red scales of the dragon’s haunch. The dragon snaked its head around, lightning quick, and hissed at the Tverkr.
Althyof walked toward us, continuing the eerie chant, not seeming the least bit uncomfortable at having a dragon hissing at his back. He lifted a hand in greeting and then turned to face the dragon.
“Thoo verthur owfram!” he sang.
“You will stay,” whispered Meuhlnir. “He’s binding the dragon so that he can stop singing.”
The dragon tensed and lunged half a step forward, jaws snapping. Its movements were slow and lackadaisical—as if it were trying to move through setting cement.
“Thoo munt echki rowthast ow ochkur!”
“You will not attack us.”
The dragon shook its massive head as if it were confused, but its anger-filled eyes never left Althyof.
“Thoo verthur tholinmoeth ok bithur!” chanted Althyof.
“You will be patient and wait,” said Meuhlnir.
“Ath oekleethnast myer er ath tayia!”
“To disobey me is to die.”
The dragon hissed its hatred and despair, but settled down on its haunches, laying its belly against the still smoldering corpses of the truykar army. Althyof watched it for an intense moment, chanting that slippery song. The melody reached a crescendo of sorts and hung there in the air—sounding fragmentary and unconsummated as if it had ended in the middle of a phrase—and Althyof nodded and smiled.
“That should hold him here,” he said. “For a while, anyway.”
Meuhlnir looked at the dragon. “Friner, I assume?”
“Of course,” said Althyof. “The Dragon Queen isn’t the only one who can muster a dragon to the fight.”
“Why didn’t you just tell us?” demanded Sif with uncharacteristic irritation in her voice.
“And rob myself of such a dramatic entrance?” Althyof smiled and winked at me. “Thank you, Aylootr, for not putting hundreds of holes in Friner’s flesh or mine.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t looking forward to fighting another dragon anyway.”
Althyof laughed as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life. I didn’t see what was so funny, but the Tverkar are a weird people. He walked to the small crater that contained the body of the wendigo or werestag or whatever it was. He kicked at the hoof resting on the edge of the crater and grunted
“This one was running away when we caught him. I think there may have been one other, but I couldn’t spot him and neither could Friner, and that dragon has a gift for spotting living things it could set on fire.”
“Why do you think there was another?” asked Meuhlnir.
“It’s just a feeling, but that was a large group of truykar to be controlled by one man.”
“True,” grunted Meuhlnir.
“Why is this thing…this shapeshifter, why is it dead?” I blurted, kicking the hoof that was extended over the edge of the crater.
Althyof looked at me like I had a third eye. “He was pulped by a dragon and thrown down with enough force to embed his body in the ground. Why wouldn’t he be dead?”
I looked Meuhlnir in the eye. “Your brother told me he was immortal.”
“Well, you can hardly expect him to go around telling people how to kill him,” scoffed Althyof.
Meuhlnir shot the Tverkr a dirty look. “The oolfa are not immortal. Their practices do grant them the ability to heal very, very quickly, however, which may grant the appearance of immortality.”
“It is a straightforward matter to kill them,” said Yowtgayrr. “You just have to outpace their healing abilities.”
Althyof nodded. “Massive amounts of damage, done quickly, does the trick.”
“Like getting pulped by a dragon,” I said.
“Yes,” said the Tverkr. “Fire can also work, or concentrated damage from a great number of people.”
“And the more experienced the oolfur, the greater their ability to heal,” said Yowtgayrr.
“Enough of this. It is pointless right now,” snapped Meuhlnir. “If
one has escaped, he will try to report to Luka in Piltsfetl.”
“Meaning we need to move with speed or our diversion here to the Darks has been a wasted effort,” said Frikka, who was staring at me with great intensity.
Panic began to gnaw at my guts. “It’s still two days to the garrison?”
Meuhlnir nodded and glanced at Friner. “How fast can the beast fly, Althyof?”
The Tverkr shrugged. “I flew him here from Kleymtlant in the time it took you to ride this far.”
Meuhlnir nodded. “A quarter of the world in two days. Impressive. Can it carry more than one?”
“The daft beast has much more capacity than it wants me to know about,” said Althyof. “But the answer is easily yes…if it will permit it. And it will permit it while I sing.”
“Right,” said Meuhlnir. “We must split the party. If possible, we need Friner to fly Hank, Veethar, and I to as close to Piltsfetl as we can get without being detected. The rest of you make your way to the garrison as quickly as you can.”
“No,” said Yowtgayrr. “We go with Hank.”
“And I’m not content to bring the baggage,” said Sif. “What if one of you is hurt.”
Meuhlnir blew an exasperated sigh through his lips. “Look, no matter how great the beast is, I don’t think it will carry all of us and the horses.”
“I’ll bring the horses,” muttered Veethar, looking at the huge dragon askance.
“We may need your help, Veethar,” said Meuhlnir.
“Exactly what is this plan you’ve concocted in that head of yours?” demanded Yowrnsaxa.
Meuhlnir sighed again. “I simply think we need to get there before Luka’s henchman. Maybe we can still win the day with guile and stealth, rather than with blood and iron.
“My thinking was that we’d take a small party and find the postern gate. Then, with Friner putting on a show at the main gate, we can make our way inside and find where his family is caged. Perhaps we can get them back out the postern and into the forest, where Friner can pick us up and return us to you and the horses.”
“That plan is fraught with ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe.’ I’m not sure you’ve thought it through,” said Sif with her arms crossed and a stern look on her face. “For instance, what if you are spotted? You have no reserve forces. What if you are injured? What if Hank’s child is injured? You have no healer.”
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 44
