Thak sniffed my direction again, and charged me doggedly.
He missed a danger.
Six svartalfs and some men attacked him from behind. One was a former champion of house Ban, and his sword struck down savagely, opening a huge gash on Thak’s shoulder. Had it been a magical blade, the jotun would have fallen. As it was, the wolf fell and rolled over a few of the enemy, snapping at their limbs and face. The dverger and the jotuns swarmed to the battle. The enemy turned to fight them, one fell, and the svartalf champion struck with his sword, deftly, killing a dverg, and then turned for the wounded Thak, smelling a great kill.
Thak got up, the champion was roaring, and I cursed as he might actually kill Thak, who was turning with a limp. The other jotuns were busy, slaying left and right at a ragged band of men and svartalfs. I gazed at the pyramid, saw Dana was still relatively safe as hundreds of her would-be killers swarmed around the pyramid like circling sharks, seeking weakness. I rushed forward to save Thak. I hacked the sabre at the back of a human fighter who had not seen me, thanks to the ring, and I pushed him over, screaming. I ran forward, the ring’s blessing gone, and the champion, a fine fighter, sensed something was coming from behind. He slashed the blade around. It hit my shield, and I ran into him. We fell in a tangle of limbs. With great fortune, I stabbed him through the belly as we fell, and we ended up with me sitting on top of him. He slapped my face weakly, I was screaming, and I twisted the blade until he went still.
Thak was tottering with a huge bleeding wound, and changed and grew into his twelve feet. He fell over me and I cursed him, throwing my weapons before me. “I just saved—”
A crackling sound filled the air. Heat burned my ears and hair, as the jotun buried me under his body. He absorbed the heat, and no flame could touch him. I gasped with the horrible heat, and saw how the flames roared past us. Most of the dverger died with shrieks, as Dana’s terrible storm swept another hundred lives out, leaving burning husks in its wake. Thak rolled onto his back, smoking, gazing up at the pyramid. There, dozens of survivors were loping up the steps, and Dana, tottering with fatigue, her dark hair billowing, called out two whips of fire. She flailed about her, her eyes darting left and right, the chains holding her.
There were fifty, then a hundred remaining enemy, spears and weapons flashing, hoping to gain the deadly maa’dark, who they now understood would kill them all, if they didn’t take her out first. I tore myself up, a charred corpse next to me, making me trip.
Up on the pyramid, Dana was whipping around desperately. The flamed whips were cutting through weapons, shields, and flesh. She turned and turned, the multicolored shield absorbing sword strikes, spears and thrown projectiles. The svartalfs climbed up bravely, dozens of them left and I surged up after them. Thak was on his knees. “Ulrich! Do
not
help Dana!”
“She’ll help us! She’s—”
“Shannon will
never
forgive her!!” Thak screamed. “She is undead; they cannot change their minds!”
“
I
might forgive Dana!” I yelled, and surged forward. The spells braided in my head, and I climbed on the scorched, bloody steps. I felt sick as I navigated the heaps of crispy corpses. Dana’s whips and falling corpses were above me. The whips flew around like mad, but then, three savagely large enemy soldiers stabbed at her from three directions. One died from a whip that sliced his chest in two, his pumping heart exploding. I saw how Dana’s chains made her trip. She fell, screamed, whipped around as she did at the two warriors, who died, falling in many flaming pieces. Others took their place, and I knew she’d not survive much more.
An ax fell on her.
Her magical guard blinked out.
Spears flashed at her, and Dana cursed with a sob. A svartalf stood above her, she kicked him in the nuts, keeling him over, but another lifted a glinting two-handed sword, and so I attacked.
I ran, and let go with the spell I had braided together. Fire sprung to the air in a thin line. It shot through the svartalf, and I moved it and burned three others. Smoke stung my eyes, obscuring my sight. I saw Stheno pointing at me, screaming. The royals were gawking down at me, and then, the kings and the queens were standing forth, weaving together spells of protection. Hundreds of guards stepped up to protect them.
Cosia and Ittisana didn’t move.
Ittisana’s face said it all. She was
furious
. Her face betrayed bottomless rage and I was sure it was aimed at me.
I ignored the look.
I screamed defiance and braided a new spell at Dana’s assailants. The fire burned through another attacker, a burly human, the instant stink of his burning flesh making me reel. My spell burned hot, and I forced it to circle the top of the pyramid and to surround Dana. She was on her knees, bleeding from her mouth. Fire was still leaving her hands despite being obviously exhausted. Svartalfs fell left and right, a burning man tumbled past me, his eyes melting down his cheeks. Dana stared at the flames in confusion, and turned to look at me. “Ulrich?”
I rushed for her. “Fight! Hang on! We’ll make it!”
“You?” she breathed. “You damned fool. You will ruin this!” she shrieked, mad with fear, and yet scared as well, as she had nearly died. She raised her hands. She looked around, saw but wounded and terrified svartalfs and turned towards me.
Stheno shrieked. “Kill him! Kill him and receive your freedom, Dana!”
I ran forward, pulled the ring out, and put it back on, and Dana released a long, thin lick of fire at me.
She hesitated and the flame missed my mirage. “Go away, Ulrich!” she sobbed.
“There is nowhere to go!” I screamed, and she looked at where I was standing. I pulled off the ring, appeared, the mirage disappeared. She was surprised, she hesitated, and then, everything changed.
Shannon’s plan came together.
Cosia stepped forward.
Her face changed as she let go of her masking spell.
Her face turned into a twisted, dead one. The snakes on her head moved lazily. There were unhealed wounds all around her body and face, and I knew she had died a hard death at Shannon’s hands, probably only days after she was captured. I felt sick with realization as to why she had obeyed Shannon, even after gaining the throne.
She had been raised as a draugr.
Ittisana whispered something to her ear, smiling maliciously. She offered Cosia the blue bag, the one I had seen Itax give Shannon, and Cosia grabbed it.
Cosia looked back at Ittisana, who was mouthing an order. Cosia, her face terrified, nodded, and surged forward. She ran with fleet feet. She pounded past the guards, the lesser lords and ladies. She opened the bag as she ran, and Kiera tumbled out of the magical thing. She disappeared as she fell, and appeared behind Stheno. The gorgon was turning, surprised, and Kiera savagely grabbed the Scepter of Night and rolled over the railing to the sand below. Darkness enveloped the Pit’s edge as Kiera tumbled down, releasing a spell. Stheno roared and turned to look down after Kiera into the fog, the royals and their guards hesitated in shock.
And Cosia, the draugr, rushed behind their backs, crashed into the back of the Queen of Scardark, grabbed the mighty Stheno, and toppled her down to the arena in a ball of flailing limbs and snakes. They crashed to the darkness and chaos reigned on the balcony.
Dana hesitated as she looked at the unfolding chaos. The svartalf nobles were in uproar, rushing back and forth. Then even more, as one turned to look behind.
Up on the throne, Ittisana stood with her legs spread. She had been my friend in Himingborg. Then, she had changed when we travelled. She changed even more now. Cosia’s near unique spell of transformation melted away, and Shannon was standing before the surprised royalty of the Vastness.
She was there, and not in Aldheim defending Himingborg, and for a moment I didn’t understand what was happening.
Dana whimpered as I dismissed the flames on top of the pyramid and stepped next to her. She whispered. “Ruugatha. She’s here to take the Throne of Scars. And the army.” She shook her head. “And me.”
D
ana’s face was bone-white. Her eyes flickered from the dark mist at the bottom of the wall to the gallery above. She tore at her bonds, and her eyes were unreadable with shock.
The kings and the queens backed off from the Throne of Scars and stared at Shannon as if they had seen a ghost. In a way, they had. The lich was wearing her black robes, her red hair was lustrous and billowing around her shoulders, the dead hand was holding Famine, and her eyes burned red. The ancient svartalf steward took steps back, horrified, and fell from the balcony. Kallista alone acted. She ran away, rushing for an exit, but the kings and queens began braiding together spells. Hundreds of guards converged on Shannon. One king unleashed a spell, perhaps not out of loyalty to Stheno, but because she was there to make trouble. There was a bright stab of light as lightning cracked and forked for Shannon. She stood on the Throne of Scars and the spell dissipated in the air. She had broken the spell. It was her skill, and she had it, even in her dead state.
“What do you want?” yelled another king in white armor.
“Your bows and oaths to your new Queen,” she laughed. “But worry not. I’ll take them after you are dead and resurrected.”
Guards charged her. Hundreds were running for her.
She let go with her own spell. The whole balcony was shaking, water flowed from the sides of the walls and pillars, then the cracks of the stone walls around us, and the whole room seemed to tilt. Stones rained down, killing some survivors of the Pit fight. I pushed Dana under me, and she coughed, and there was a scream of terror from hundreds of throats, as much of the balcony crashed to the Pit. The twinkling spears of the guards tilted, shields rattled, high nobles and kings and queens yelled and rolled down amidst tons of stone, rubble, and dust. The darkness Kiera, Cosia, and Stheno had fallen into was heaped with mortar and bits of pillars and corpses. Parts of the balcony survived to the sides, and there, many survivors rushed to escape, while others cowered in shock and fear. We stared around at the chaos. The dust was settling and the black and gold throne came to sight, and Shannon still stood on it, at the edge of the fallen balcony.
Her eyes were looking down at where Stheno had fallen.
All around us, hurt svartalfs were crawling up, the defensive spells glimmering in the settling dust as the highest of the survivors tried to get to their feet.
Shannon’s eyes turned my way.
She didn’t look like a friend then. Not at all. She pointed a bony finger at me, then at Dana. “
Kill
her. Then use the mask, and help kill Stheno!”
“Dana doesn’t need to die!” I roared. “You came here to take Scardark? What for?”
“What for?” she screamed back. “Why, as you said, I don’t have an army! I’ll take Aldheim for Hel. Svartalfheim as well. That’s what she wants!”
“And the Horn?” I yelled and eyed some of the jotuns taking careful steps up to us. “What of that? And what I suggested?”
She shook her head. “The Horn will
wait
. Hel’s revenge will come first. I’m sorry, Ulrich, but I cannot refuse her.” She was clutching Famine, and I knew there was no arguing with her. She spoke to the mercenaries. “Kill her.
Him
, if he tries to stop you.” The jotuns took steps up. Kiera appeared out of a dark cloud steps away from us, holding the Scepter, and Thak, limping was climbing for us.
Kiera hissed. “Step away, love.” She held the Scepter and pointed it at me. I didn’t budge. “
Move
, Ulrich.”
Dana whimpered and struggled with her chains. “Oh gods, no,” she was saying.
And then, they all had something else to think about.
I pushed before Dana, and looked below. There, a horrible mess of stone had moved. Five kings and queens were backing off, dozens of battered guards with them as the heaps of stone moved. Two of the royals couldn’t be seen, and Kallista had escaped but the rest spread out, anticipating Stheno.
And there, in the midst of the horrible mess, stood the First Born.
She held a struggling, battered Cosia in one of her bleeding left hands, tangling the draugr from the snakes. She lifted Cosia high, and placed another hand on her throat. She tore her hand into Cosia’s skull, and the draugr gorgon fell truly dead, shivering as her skull was emptied by the claws of the Queen of Svartalfheim. Stheno spoke, while looking at the husk of a gorgon. “Hel’s filth.” She let go of the corpse, gazing up at Shannon. She turned to the queens and the kings and raised her voice. “Fight and be rewarded! Show your true allegiance! Fight, or you shall perish!”
She gazed at Kiera and the Scepter, and at Shannon. She looked up at her, straddling the Throne. “That’s not yours,” she hissed. “You are making it filthy with your dirty, Hel-stained feet. I’ll rip them off.”
Shannon eyed her terrible enemy. “It will be mine, when you join Euryale in your weeping life in Helheim. And you will. She is expecting you.”
Stheno called for mighty powers. Her spell tore from her hands, a mist of burning fumes that billowed for the Throne of Scars. The spell crumbled stone, it burned the broken pillars and turned the dust to fiery sparks that rained down.
Shannon saw the spell coming. “You saw what happened to your sister, Stheno,” Shannon laughed. “Remember that sight. She wept.”
“You cannot weep,” Stheno spat, and pushed the spell up. “But you will scream,” she finished. The fog was eating into stone, burrowing into the fine marble and melting skulls and bones, and then it hit the throne, which darkened. Shannon changed. She was glowing with protective energies.
A swarm of crows left the throne, fluttering around as she leapt into the air and landed on a pillar of rock in the Pit. Thak was growling orders, and twenty or so surviving svartalf mercenaries that had hung back from Dana’s power, the one dverg and the jotuns, forgot about us and silently rushed down the pyramid for the throng below. There, some fifty battered svartalf guards were ringing their royals, who were removing robes in favor of freedom of movement. Several of them threw spells at Shannon. There was a thick, fierce fire and icy stabs of cold, but Shannon waved her hands around, and the spells either went fantastically wrong, disappeared, or hit the pillar and dissipated around her. She held Famine, the dagger of Hel, and it gave her great power over the enemy spells.
She was not invincible though. Not against Stheno.
Kiera was lingering near, her eyes on Dana, then Shannon. I growled at her. “Forget Dana, Kiera. And go and help Shannon.”
“Will you?” she asked bitterly. “Now that you know everything.”
I bit my lip, furious. They had always meant to kill Stheno, to gain the land and its armies, and war would go on indefinitely. I had asked Shannon to give the Horn to the gods, and she had had no intention to do so. Both Itax and the Masked One had been right. I had been disappointed, and I was mightily unhappy about that.
I had decided to take the dragon’s offer. Perhaps I should do more and attack them all. My eyes lingered on the Scepter and Kiera lifted her eyebrow suspiciously.
Instead, I said nothing to Kiera, and kneeled next to Dana, as the mercenaries rammed into the svartalfs below. Stheno was moving closer to Shannon, who stood on top of the pillar, staring down at her. The royals were spreading after their queen, while some whirled to look at the mercenaries.
Shannon was Hel’s thing,
I thought.
Fully.
But Stheno would spread misery just like her. I shook Dana. “Will
you
help us?”
Dana hesitated, licking her bloodied lips. I pulled her around and she scowled at me.
“She
is
your sister,” I told her.
“She wants me dead,” she whispered. “You did, as well.”
“Stheno
will
get you killed just the same, fool girl,” I cursed her. “And I won’t let Shannon kill you. I just shielded you from them.”
“Stheno gave me this chance …” she began and shook her head, knowing I was right. Stheno would kill her in an eye blink when her mood changed.
“Your fear killed her. Cannot be undone,” I growled at her. “But you can start redeeming yourself. And who knows?” I said with spite. “Maybe you’ll get all the power and riches you always dreamed of by doing what’s right for once?”
She rubbed her face, the chains clinking. “I tried to do the right thing for once. I tried to flee Stheno when I jumped into the portal. I released a spell at her. She wasn’t happy. I guess she will never really forget, just like Shannon. Fine,” she said desperately. “I’ll fight. For you.”
I squeezed her shoulder gratefully.
Below, one of the kings of the Scardark rushed back to support the guards, who were grimly holding their own. The great one dodged a jotun’s strike, and killed the last dverg with a bright spear that cut through its armor like butter. The short warrior fell on his back, and the battle-mad king roared, raging, and led his guard against the mercenaries. Three jotuns were slaying their enemy savagely. The king whirled and braided together a spell of ice, and one jotun fell dead, as an icy spear impaled it from below. A bitter fight concentrated around the king and Thak. Thak was hacking and slaying. The king laughed wildly as he killed a charging svartalf with a lightning quick strike, and held the thing with the spear before ripping out its innards. The king moved, hunting for the other jotun. Thak roared a warning, as the dark-skinned giant whirled, but the merciless spear cut to its belly. The jotun screamed, changed into a gigantic bear and buried the royal under claws and jaws, before dying of ax and sword hits. The guards swarmed forward, and many mercenaries fell.
Kiera shook her head, her undead eyes full of loathing and uncertainty. “Use the Iron Trial,” she hissed.
“You go and fight, Kiera,” I said, hoping not to take the terrible artifact out.
The mercenaries were still fighting, but the enemy were pushing shields at them, and spearing many. Thak was smashing and cutting at the enemies, breaking shields and raging and the mercenaries killed many a foe in front of them, but it didn’t look good. Two queens had abandoned their attack on Shannon and were maneuvering, their blades out. The other three royals flanked Stheno as she faced Shannon. One of the queens, a tall, skinny one braided together a spell that sucked the air out of the mouths of six mercenaries, which were cut down as they writhed in the sand. Thak was rolling, hoping to avoid what a hauntingly beautiful short queen was about to release at him.
I pulled Dana close, whispered to her. “Kill them. And later, there is something I can do, if things go wrong. Something that can save
both
of us. Trust me.”
She hesitated. She nodded.
Then she turned to face the battle below. She called for her mighty powers, and I stood and guarded her, especially from Kiera, who was fondling the great Scepter nervously, looking down at the battle and then at Dana, and perhaps since Dana was about to aid us, she left Heartbreaker in its sheath. Dana swayed and released the spell. The flaming inferno roared to life, nearly sucking me down the pyramid after it, and it burned and swirled through the battling troop below. It roared through most of our few remaining troops, and I bit my lip, having not thought to save them. Skeletal, crispy remains and blackened armor fell around the room, bits of flaming flesh sizzling, and then the inferno passed through the enemy troops, Spears burned, svartalfs screamed, their flesh ablaze. The tall queen shrieked, her spell of protection sparing her flesh, but the heat made her kneel in pain, and then the lack of air snuffed out her life and she burst into flames amidst the chaos. The other queen was tottering away, and Thak appeared in the midst of the flaming hell, and impaled her through her chest so brutally, her arm and part of her chest was ripped away.
The flames died.
Thak was left standing.
Stheno and her followers attacked Shannon. Fire roared alive around our old friend. Ice encased her feet, and lightning struck out to get her. One jagged bolt fell away, her guards absorbed another.
She stood her ground, her skin glowing.
Famine glinted, as lightning struck her again and the ice made its way up to her chest. The fire swirled around her, and singed her hair. She grimaced and roared and released a spell of dark fumes and death. The ice around her broke and the fumes slithered down like snakes. Two kings saw the spells were coming for them, backed off, and ran. The spells caught them and they screamed inside their defensive spells, their faces turned rotten and moldy and they crumbled into piles of dead meat. The last one, a tall queen took steps back, and back, and Thak rammed his sword through her spine.
Stheno whirled.
She ripped off her hood and gazed around. Two svartalf mercenaries and some guards died. Their eyes bled, their faces hardened, and they fell down, dead as stone. Thak roared and whirled away, holding his eyes. Stheno turned around to us, and I looked away, pain stabbing at my eyes. Dana shrieked as well, falling on her knees. Stheno’s wicked eyes scoured around. On the balcony svartalfs turned to stone. Some fell down, and rolled in the sand. Stheno whirled and stared up at Shannon. She didn’t flinch under the deadly stare, but Stheno was after Kiera and the Scepter.