Druid Arcane: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (The Colin McCool Paranormal Suspense Series Book 11)

by M. D. Massey

  The sun was high overhead when Býleistr’s men finished setting up the stadium for a trial by combat. The chopping block was taken away, and a hundred-yard-wide circular ring was laid out in the center of the coliseum floor using man-sized stone blocks. The blocks were high enough to demarcate the fighting area, but not so high as to block the crowd’s view. Finally, the floor inside the arena was covered in red clay dirt, which was then groomed and compacted until it became a single smooth, uniform surface.

  Somehow, Váli had been designated as the officiator for our duel, being a neutral third party and a god to boot. He called us both to the center of the ring, speaking loudly enough so everyone in the stadium could hear his instructions. The god gave Býleistr a questioning look, and the giant spat off to the side.

  “Get on wit’ it, Aesir,” Býleistr grumbled.

  Váli turned to me. “You are the challenger, druid. Therefore, you get to decide the rules and weapons.”

  “Oh, you don’t say?” I’d hoped that would be the case, although I had a plan if it went the other way, which was pretty much don’t die. “We’ll face each other giant to giant in a battle of magic—no weapons of any kind allowed, and empty-handed combat is off-limits.”

  Býleistr’s eyes lit up for a moment, then his expression settled into a bored poker face. “I agree to those terms,” was his only reply.

  “Then it is settled,” Váli said. “If the challenger falls, then his accuser will be deemed to have received the justice he sought. If the accuser falls, then the challenger will pay half a weregild for both prince and jarl. Is this agreed by both parties?”

  “What’s a weregild?” I asked.

  “It’s the man price,” Váli said. “Just recompense for taking the life of one who provides protection, service, or livelihood.”

  “Oh, I’ll gladly pay a fair price to kick this fool’s ass,” I said, meaning it. “But Býleistr must also agree that my companions will be released, no matter the outcome of the duel. And you have to bring me Dian Cécht.”

  The god glanced at the giant. “What does the jarl say to those terms?”

  Býleistr grunted. “Aye. Fair ’nuff terms, they are.”

  Váli’s gaze turned back to me.

  “Agreed,” I growled.

  The god grunted. “Then retreat to opposite sides of the ring to prepare. You have five minutes. When the war horn sounds, the battle begins.”

  I walked back to my side of the ring, stripping down to my lycra skivvies so I could shift. Sure, I’d set the terms so we wouldn’t be engaging in physical combat, but I was counting on my Fomorian healing factor to get me through this battle. I’d make a smaller target if I stealth-shifted, but I just wasn’t as tough in that form. More agile, sure, but my human exterior afforded me little in the way of protection from elemental damage.

  As I shifted, I wondered if I’d made the right decision. Back when I fought Snorri, I’d managed to fully transform during the final part of our battle. Although Snorri was smaller than his dad, he’d still nearly beaten me, and not just by way of brawn. That bastard knew how to wrestle, and he’d been damned good at it. I figured that Býleistr would be twice the combatant his son was, so I’d decided to avoid physical combat altogether.

  The only problem was, the jarl had seemed to like that idea, and that gave me pause. He was Loki’s brother, after all. And while Loki might’ve been weakened by what Váli and Odin did to him, he was still a formidable magician. I had to assume that Loki had inherited some of his powers from his jötnar parents, and that his brother shared the same.

  Yet all I’d seen Býleistr use thus far were powers of illusion. He’d concealed an entire battalion of giants from us when we arrived through the portal, after all. So, maybe I’d lucked out and tipped the scales in my favor by opting for an all-magic battle. Who could say?

  Then again, I wasn’t feeling all that lucky. Since I wasn’t connected to the Oak at the moment, my greatest source of magical energy was gone. Sure, I could still emulate all the spells I’d previously performed using the Oak’s power, plus everything I’d learned from Finnegas and Click. Unfortunately, I’d be powering them with my innate magical energy only, which meant I might run out of juice long before Býleistr.

  Fuck.

  At least my Craneskin Bag had turned up. I’d asked for it after Býleistr agreed to the holmgang, but of course no one could find the damned thing. That was to be expected because it was semi-sentient. The Bag had bonded with my family ages ago, and anytime someone took it from me, it had a way of reappearing when I most needed it.

  It had been nowhere to be found when I walked over here—of that I was certain. But when I looked for a place to stash my clothing, there it was, sitting on one of the boundary blocks. Too bad it was only good for storing weapons and valuables, and hiding evidence from the cops. Even so, I grabbed a few things from it while I was storing my clothes, figuring even a small advantage was better than none.

  Váli’s voice echoed across the floor of the stadium. “Are the combatants ready?”

  By then I’d spooled up a couple of spells, and I’d fully shifted into my Fomorian form—nine-feet-plus of twisted steel and sex appeal. Okay, maybe not that last part, unless someone was into the Quasimodo look. But I was ready as I’d ever be.

  “Aye,” Býleistr said as he gave me the figurative evil eye.

  “Then bring it, you cross-eyed, mangy, genital-wart-infested goat fucker,” I said. It wasn’t my best work, but it was an extemporaneous performance. “Ready!”

  Váli chuckled as he deftly leapt atop the centermost demarcation block. “Let the duel begin!”

  22

  I thought Býleistr might open with something brash and flashy, but I was wrong. As soon as the horn sounded, the fucker went invisible. Since illusory magic seemed to be his bread and butter, I’d figured that would happen at some point. And I had a plan. While I might have insisted that there’d be no weapons, I hadn’t said a word about clothing.

  Draping Gunnarson’s cloak over my shoulders, I sidestepped left and said a silent prayer that the damned thing would cooperate. Again, the cloak’s magic fell over me immediately. I thanked my lucky stars just as a fireball exploded on the boundary blocks, right where I’d been standing a split-second before.

  So, he does have some elemental magic. Shit.

  For some reason, I’d thought Loki’s siblings were frost giants, a notion likely derived from popular media. After all, most of my knowledge of the Norse pantheon came from comic books and movies. And, in hindsight, ignoring such a gap in knowledge had likely been a major tactical error.

  Oops. Should’ve boned up on some actual Norse mythology before I came here. Oh well.

  Nevertheless, I couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see me, which left us at a sort of stalemate. I was pretty sure I had the superior invisibility magic, though, as Gunnarson’s cloak erased all trace of the wearer’s passing. The only thing it couldn’t do was remove your presence from your current plane of existence, which was how I’d located the former owner to kill him. I was betting that Býleistr’s magic was sloppier, and that it’d leave some trace of his passing that I could detect.

  So, I scanned the ground for scuff marks on the previously pristine clay, waiting to see if he’d reveal himself by casting another spell. Then, I could blast an area of effect spell in that direction. Lighting him on fire would be ideal—you could use magic to make yourself invisible, but there was little you could do to conceal smoke from your own burning clothing.

  Soon I saw the tiniest mark appear on the clay surface of the ring, an almost imperceptible impression in the shape of a huge-ass foot. You’d think a giant would leave deeper footprints, but the jötnar were known for the ability to manipulate their own size. Maybe Býleistr had altered his mass instead, to ensure he didn’t give himself away in said manner.

  Regardless, I figured I had him, so I blasted two fireballs back at him as I ran an evasive pattern to my right. The ide
a was that I wouldn’t be where the fireballs had come from when my opponent countered. Hopefully, that was.

  My second fireball hit something solid while I was still on the move. I skidded to a stop, thankful for the cloak’s magic, which covered up my footprints as I passed. Then, I waited for something to happen—smoke, flames, whatever. All I got for my efforts was bupkis, zip, nothing.

  Damn.

  Býleistr’s voice came from somewhere nearby, causing me to jump in response. “Were you expectin’ flames, drood?” he taunted, as his voice shifted to another location. “I were born o’ fire—cain’t nuthin’ burn me, not natural heat nor magic.”

  Ah, he’s throwing his voice. Clever.

  “Why don’t we drop cover an’ fight like warriors, eh, drood?” he continued as his voice came from yet another direction. “Settle this fist ta’ fist. I know ya’ want ta’, so jest say the word an’ we kin have at it.”

  Fuck that.

  Býleistr seemed a little too eager to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Earlier, it was clear he wanted this exchange. I strongly suspected he wanted me to believe his magic was limited, perhaps not in power, but in scope. And if that was the case, he was a much more powerful magician than I’d guessed earlier.

  “Siegfried’s cloak, eh?” Býleistr said, throwing his voice all over the ring so it came from several places at once. “I thought it were lost. Such a treasure oughta’ remain with its own kind. I’ll gladly rip it from yar’ corpse after yer’ dead.”

  By this time, the crowd was getting restless, since the big fight they’d been expecting had turned out to be a dud. Soon, shouts of, “Kill someone, already!” and “Stop talking, and start magicking!” could be heard above the din of hundreds of jötnar fidgeting in the stands. Giants started booing in the cheap seats on high, and they began throwing rotten food in our general direction. Where the jötnar got such an endless supply of spoiled meat and produce was beyond me, but I made a note to avoid eating at any giant’s house in the future.

  As for me, I was really getting tired of Býleistr’s yapping. Since we were more or less evenly matched on the invisibility front, I had to force a mistake. I reached inside the waistband of my Jockeys, grabbing a small object I’d taken from my Bag earlier. With the noise of the crowd providing some cover, I whispered a trigger word then tossed the thing across the ring.

  The magically-enhanced M80 firecracker exploded with a loud boom. As I’d hoped, the giant reacted by sending another fireball hurtling at the spot where the explosion occurred. But I wasn’t looking there; instead, I watched carefully for the origin point of Býleistr’s spell.

  Bingo.

  His fireballs had popped into view at a spot near the edge of the ring, about fifty feet away from where I stood. I estimated his approximate location based on the trajectory, then I cut loose with the mother of all lightning bolt spells. My lightning bolt crashed into the wall beyond and detonated with a tremendous thunderclap. Much to my surprise, it appeared to have completely missed my intended target.

  “Gotcha,” a voice said to my left, just as I was struck by a lightning spell even more potent than my own.

  The force of the blast knocked me across the ring. I landed on my back, temporarily stunned by the impact and effects of the spell. I’d actually never been hit by a lightning spell of that magnitude, and to be honest, it took me by surprise. The wind had been knocked clean out of me, and while I wanted to move, my muscles refused to obey my brain’s commands.

  Somehow I managed to sit up, only to see that my flesh had charred and blackened around the fist-sized entrance wound in my stomach. Additionally, half my left foot had been vaporized where the charge had exited into the ground below. Even worse, the wounds trailed vaporous streams of smoke, just enough to betray my presence to my foe.

  Ah, shit—time to move.

  With a supreme effort of will, I rolled to the right just as another lightning bolt struck the earth beside me. Although the spell had missed, I was close enough to catch the ground current, which sent my body into convulsions where I lay. Another bolt struck me in the leg, then the fourth volley hit me in the chest. While I could see where they were coming from, I was temporarily helpless to respond in kind.

  All the while, the giant’s disembodied voice taunted me from all directions at once, as the crowd cheered his imminent victory. “Thought ya’ was smart, choosin’ a magic duel. Tweren’t quite what ya’ were expectin’, eh, drood? Turns out, ol’ Býleistr knows a thing or two ’bout magic, he does. So much fer’ the luck o’ Irlanders.”

  My thoughts were fuzzy, and my body didn’t want to respond—never mind the extreme pain I was in due to the extensive damage multiple 100,000-volt strikes had caused internally. And while my Fomorian healing factor was already repairing my injuries, I needed time to recover if I was to survive this battle.

  Think, Colin, think.

  The cloak was still intact, because I could sense its magic still working to conceal me. That meant Býleistr was locating me due to the wisps of smoke coming off my burned flesh. All he had to do was keep clobbering me with lightning and the odd fireball, and I’d be a sitting duck for his attacks.

  A half-dozen more of those and I’d be toast, Fomorian form or no. That simply would not do, because I had plans that involved fucking Býleistr up in front of his loyal subjects. In desperation, I thought back to times past when I needed concealment, before I’d created my chameleon spell—back when the cloak refused to cooperate.

  Fog. I need to create fog.

  “Ceò,” I whispered, slamming the palm of my hand flat on the ground.

  There was a time when casting such a spell would’ve required advance preparation, both to gather my druidic magic and to attune myself to the elements. But since bonding with Druid Oak, and after spending the equivalent of years inside the Grove honing my skills, releasing a fog bank was as easy as breathing air. Instantly, a thick cloud of mist sprang up from the earth beneath us, obscuring the entire floor of the arena, and the smoke trailing from my wounds as well.

  “No!” Býleistr shouted, blasting the ground with lightning and fire.

  But I was already gone, limping away to recover while I considered how I might end that fucker for good. He was strong, true, but so was I, and I believed that my magic was the equal of his any day of the week. I just had to channel it properly to get the effect I desired.

  The problem was, the giant was twenty feet tall and immune to certain magical attacks. Fire wouldn’t hurt him, so I had to assume lightning wouldn’t do much good, either. And that was if I could hit him. He’d already proven to have enough mastery of illusory magic to conceal the origin point of his spells, leaving that tactic nearly useless.

  “Drood, stop yer’ hidin’ now,” Býleistr teased. “Yer’ only makin’ the sufferin’ last.”

  In that situation, Cathbad’s Planetary Maelstrom would’ve been the spell of choice. The only problem was, I didn’t have the juice to lift the only loose stones around, which were the massive blocks that marked the boundary of the ring. The ground beneath us wouldn’t work either, because it consisted of nothing more than smooth, hard clay.

  At that moment, a lightning bolt struck nearby. It was close enough to interrupt my thoughts, but thankfully far enough away for me to escape its effects. Soon, however, Býleistr seemed to lose patience, and lightning bolts began landing in random patterns all over the ring. There was no dodging them, because no one was fast enough to dodge lightning, so the best I could do was hope I didn’t catch a lucky hit.

  I needed to take him out immediately, or I was a goner.

  Think, Colin. What’s another heavy-hitting spell?

  That would’ve been Mogh’s Scythe, a spell that shot a super-compressed, molecule-thin layer of air out that would cut through anything in its path. It had worked well on the draugar, and it’d likely work on Býleistr as well. But again, I was limited by the fact that the spell required line of sight to aim.

  Hmm…
what if it didn’t?

  To cast Cathbad’s Planetary Maelstrom, a druid had to direct the trajectory of multiple objects at once, causing them to simultaneously orbit around a central axis at speeds fast enough to kill. Thus far I’d managed to guide at least a dozen such missiles at a time—enough to ruin Hob’s day, certainly. Could I do the same with multiple iterations of Mogh’s Scythe?

  I had no choice but to go for broke.

  Fuck it. Time to invent Colin’s Planetary Maelstrom of Scythes.

  As fireballs and lightning bolts struck the ground in random patterns all across the dueling enclosure, I cast a druid armor spell on myself, just in case I got hit while I was working on my main offensive gambit. The Oak had taught me that spell on the fly by sheathing me in a protective, bark-like covering while I was fighting a dimensional shambler in the Void.

  The armor trick worked great against physical attacks, but it was only so-so against elemental spells. Wood was a poor conductor but susceptible to fire, so it’d likely only offer one-shot protection if I got hit by a fireball. Meaning, I needed to make this quick.

  I began by lying flat on the ground to hopefully avoid getting zapped. Then I dropped into a druid trance, a state of mind used in druidry to facilitate the casting of our most difficult magical workings. Less than a year ago, it would have taken me several minutes to achieve—and that was on a good day. Practice makes perfect, however, and today I reached my Zen state within the span of three full breaths.

  Once I’d removed all external distractions from my mind, it was time to turn the atmosphere into weaponry. The spell required the caster to visualize the manipulation of a vast volume of air, compressing and flattening it until it became a semi-solid, razor-thin blade. Once formed, the druid would telekinetically launch the construct in a single direction at their very unfortunate enemies.