Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (15 page)

voices rose up behind me as our speed crept slowly up to match that of the

wolves, and kept rising. The faint breeze became a stiff wind of biting cold,

and I pulled my cloak tighter.

Cerise leaned forward, wind whipping at her cloak as she gripped the

parapet with both hands, and whooped excitedly.

“This is awesome!” She exclaimed. “Look at those silly wolves run. You

can’t catch us, smelly monsters! Our wizard is way too smart for you.”

She whooped again, and a half-dozen voices joined in.

I glanced back to find that while most of the refugees were huddled

miserably against the harsh wind of our passage, a number of them were

reacting more like teenagers on a joyride. I caught one of the young men

bending over to moon the goblins, and even several women were jeering and

waving goodbye.

Avilla noticed my surprise, and leaned over to talk in my ear. “The wolf

heart, remember? Now we know who it worked on.”

88

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Is it permanent?”

She nodded. “If they want it to be. Most people will reject the wolf nature

and lose the benefit in a day or two, but those that accept it will keep the

power. Not that it’s going to amount to much with as many ways as it was split,

but a little extra bravery and vitality can go a long way.”

“Can we go faster?” Cerise interrupted breathlessly.

I shook my head. “Not unless you want to go splat when we hit that bend

in the river up there. I have to wrestle this thing around by brute force, and that

takes time.”

She turned to stare at me. “Wait, what? Are you saying your force element

is so strong you can just push this thing around?”

I nodded.

A heartbeat later she’d somehow managed to slip under my cloak and

plaster herself against me.

“Loki’s balls, that’s hot!” She purred into my ear. “I so want to fuck you

right now.”

I rolled my eyes. “So much for being worn out.”

Avilla was close enough to hear. She giggled. “Not now, kitten. Be a

good girl, and let Daniel concentrate on steering.”

“Do I have to?”

Avilla giggled again. “Come here, silly thing.”

She held her cloak open, and Cerise reluctantly let me go and settled into

her girlfriend’s lap. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed, but it

was probably for the best. I turned my attention back to our surroundings, and

tried to keep an eye out for danger.

“Thomas, keep an eye on our passengers for me. We need to keep

everyone sitting down, or someone’s bound to fall overboard. If they land in

open water and slip under the ice we’d never find them in time.”

He nodded. “Yessir. Umar, Valdrin, the wizard says to sit down!”

It took him a few minutes to get things back under control, and by then the

goblins were far behind us. I noticed Avilla handing Cerise’s warmth cloak to

89

Beri out of the corner of my eye, but thought nothing of it. We flew through one

long, lazy curve of river and down a mile or so of straightaway, and I let the

barge slow a bit. No need to take chances.

An odd sound drew my attention back to Cerise, and I saw that she was

hidden up to the neck by Avilla’s cloak. She was also flushed, squirming and

biting her lip.

“Avilla? What are you up to?”

“I’m just making sure Cerise doesn’t distract you, master,” the hearth

witch said piously. “I know how excitable she can be.”

“Right. Insatiable is more like it. Just keep in mind we could be attacked

by something else at any moment.”

“Not helping,” Cerise whimpered. “Danger does it for me too.”

Somehow I resisted the urge to facepalm. Those two could be a lot of fun,

but they definitely needed a keeper.

Some time later a column of smoke came into view ahead, which

dampened the mood considerably. But at least it turned out to be another

village rather than Lanrest. We eyed the smoking ruins as we passed, and I

slowed the barge so we could take a good look at the scene.

“Doesn’t look like giants,” Thomas commented. “The buildings aren’t

smashed.”

I frowned. “Good. But it doesn’t look like goblins either. They like

burning things, and most of the buildings here are intact.”

He nodded. “Yessir. Looks like some cookfires got left untended after an

attack, and set some of the buildings on fire. Weird thing is, if you look close it

ain’t just doors that are smashed open. Some windows here and there, and I

see a couple spots where it looks like something just tore through a wall.

Berserkers with axes might leave that kind of mess.”

Cerise sat up, and eyed the ground suddenly. “Does anyone see tracks?

Weird-looking ones?”

Gronir pointed. “There, by the river bank. Never seen nothing like that.

Looks like a buncha giant chickens or something.”

90

It took me a moment to find the tracks. They were pretty odd alright. A

couple of feet across, with three long pointed toes. Crap. I’d seen pictures of

prints like that before.

“We need to get out of here,” Cerise breathed.

I nodded, and gave the barge a firm push. It was hard to judge distances

without pacing it off, but the tracks looked to have something like a five or six

foot stride. If the ice was thick enough to support a troll it would probably hold

something that size too, and a whole pack of them would be bad news.

“What is it, sweetie?” Avilla asked quietly.

Then there was movement between two of the houses, and a long lean

shape eased into view.

“Ungols,” Cerise replied.

It looked a lot like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, but the thing was

easily the size of a horse. Its hide was white and grey, perfect for blending into

the snow-covered terrain.

It slunk forward slowly as we pulled away, watching us closely. But

apparently it didn’t like the way the ice constantly cracked under the barge as it

moved, because it didn’t approach.

I glanced about quickly, and spotted another one on a rock on the other

side of the river. As silent as they were I couldn’t shake the feeling that there

were more of them lurking about that I hadn’t spotted. On closer examination it

was obvious that they weren’t actually velociraptors - their heads were longer

and narrower, their forepaws were tipped with long blades instead of normal

claws, and their hide was decorated with spines and ridges that had an oddly

metallic look. But the general body plan was similar, and I’d certainly hate to

be a normal human confronting them on foot.

Our speed rose gradually, but the tense silence lasted until we left the

ruined village well behind. Then a babble of nervous voices erupted from the

refugees.

“What do you know about Ungols?” I asked Cerise quietly.

“They’re Cthonic beasts from the Stygian Abyss, out beyond Tarterus,”

she replied. “Supposedly even tougher than they look, and smart too. But they

91

shouldn’t be here. The path to their realm has been sealed since before

Olympus fell. I read something once about a few of them being stuck

elsewhere, enslaved to… um… I think it was some group of wizards in

Muspelheim, but I could be remembering that wrong. But the Sons of Muspel

are basically fire demons, so if they were here it wouldn’t be so cold.”

Well, the implications of that were obvious.

“Are there a lot of sealed places full of monsters like that?”

“Yeah. No one knows how many, because the gods don’t like to talk about

it and mortal wizards who go poking around don’t usually live long. But

Tarterus is some kind of nexus for portals to worlds full of monsters.”

Avilla nodded. “That’s why the Olympians used it as a prison. They

sealed the doors to the Planes of Terror and bound the Titans in front of them,

so they’d only need to watch one place.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and most of the monsters will eat

each other instead of coming here.”

The girls exchanged nervous looks. “We can hope.”

The rest of the trip was deceptively peaceful. We passed mile after mile

of snow-covered field and forest, the former gradually becoming more

common as we neared the town. We were moving generally south-east, and the

land was becoming flatter. At one point a castle was visible in the distance,

still flying a banner, but that was the only sign of civilization.

At length a walled settlement came into sight before us. A sigh of relief

went through the refugees as we approached, and it became clear that the place

was still held by humans. There were guards on the walls, flags flying, and

even a group of wagons approaching an open but heavily guarded gate not far

from the river bank.

But I noted that the walls weren’t all that high, the moat was frozen, and

the gates were made of wood. I could see a dozen ways for the monsters we’d

been fighting to break in if the defenders ever relaxed their guard, and it wasn’t

that big a town. Maybe a few thousand people, if it was as crowded as I

expected. I was going to have my work cut out for me if we wanted to hold the

place for long.

The river bank was steep enough that I wasn’t eager to try getting the

92

barge up it, but there were docks where the town met the river. I slowed us to

walking speed and carefully maneuvered towards them, looking for an empty

spot. There were buildings beyond the docks, and I saw people shouting and

pointing at us as we approached. A clatter of chainmail announced the arrival

of troops as I carefully pulled up alongside a wooden dock, which proved to

be at about the right height for us to disembark.

“People!” Someone shouted in amazement. “There’s people on it!”

“Halt!” A nearer voice ordered. “Announce yourselves, strangers.”

I climbed to my feet to find a dozen or so armored men clustered at the

end of the dock, armed with a motley assortment of spears, swords and bows.

The man addressing us was the best geared of the lot, with a pot helm and steel

greaves to go with his chain hauberk.

“Daniel Black, traveling adept,” I called. “These are survivors from the

5th Margold Foot, along with some of your local villagers. May we

disembark?”

“A wizard, eh? Come on ashore then, sir. I’m sure the Baron will want to

talk to you. What kind of infernal contraption is that thing?”

He sounded pretty dubious about it, but I suppose for all he knew it was

going to start eating his men or something.

“Just a bit of earth magic,” I reassured him. “It won’t do anything unless

I’m controlling it. We ran into a frost giant and a pack of felwolves about

twenty miles upriver, and the injured weren’t going to make it here on foot.”

“Damn. We saw a giant the other day, those things are huge. How’d you

get away?”

“The wizard killed it, and the felwolves too,” Sergeant Thomas

interrupted. “We wouldn’t have made it back without him.”

“Thomas!” The man called, obviously recognizing him. “Glad you made

it. We’re going to need every man the way things are going. Ah, the Captain?”

Thomas gestured at the litter two of his men were carefully raising onto

the dock. “He’s hurt bad, but the wizard patched him up. Says he’ll be up and

around in a few days.”

“Hmm. I’d keep a guard on him if I were you. Alright, sir wizard, if you’ll

93

follow me? You have servants? Bring’em along. We’d best get this sorted

quick.”

“Alright. Let’s just tie a rope to this thing so the wind doesn’t blow it

away.”

I added a couple of loops to the parapet of the hover-barge, so we could

tie it off to the dock as the rest of my party unloaded. Then Avilla motioned

Beri and Tina over, and we set out following the soldier who still hadn’t

bothered to introduce himself. Avilla positioned herself a step behind me to my

right, with the maids immediately behind her and Cerise bringing up the rear. I

shot her a questioning glance as we crossed the dock and started into town, and

she responded by looking nervously around and then back at me.

So, she didn’t entirely trust the situation either? Good to know.

The buildings along the river seemed mostly empty, but the reason for that

became apparent when we came to a wall separating the docks from the rest of

the town. Beyond that the place was packed, a bustling crowd filling the streets

despite the cold. We made our way down narrow, winding cobblestone roads

between two-story buildings set so close together they often shared walls. An

eye-watering stench rose up around us despite the chill, and it was abundantly

obvious that to the locals the streets doubled as makeshift sewers. Lovely.

A square keep stood in the middle of town, surrounded by a small plaza