CHAPTER 9
I went to see Immokalee, a Cherokee medicine woman, after leaving the Guild. She spent half an hour making supplies for me and another half an hour trying to convince me that going to see the draugr was a Bad Idea. I knew it was a Bad Idea. I just didn’t see any way around it.
I got to the Cutting Edge office just after noon. The Dude and a cart containing one very sedated deer waited for me in the parking lot. A female shapeshifter I didn’t know sat on the cart with a sour expression on her face. It took me only a moment to figure out why. Next to the cart, hiding in the shade, crouched a vampire. It was thin, wiry, and covered in purple sunblock from head to toe, as if some giant bubble of grape bubblegum had exploded over it.
Jim had done it. I felt like jumping up and down. Instead I gave the vamp my flat stare.
“There are more inside,” the female shapeshifter informed me.
I stepped into the office. Curran sat at my desk, drinking a Corona from my fridge. In front of him, four vampires sat in a neat row in the middle of the floor. Two matched the purple delight outside, one was Grinch green, and the last one blazed with orange.
“I get the sunblock,” I said. “But why do you have to paint them like Skittles?”
The orange vamp unhinged its jaws. “The bright color helps to make sure they’re completely covered,” an unfamiliar female voice explained. “It’s easy to miss a spot. When they’re young, they have a lot of wrinkles.”
Ugh. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Kate,” the green vamp spoke with Ghastek’s voice, “it has come to my attention that you are planning to see a creature in the Viking territory with the purpose of finding a means to remove the necklace from the child. An undead creature. That explicitly violates the terms of our agreement to resolve this matter jointly.”
I looked at Curran. He shrugged.
“And how did you know this?” I asked.
“I have my methods.”
How in the world had Jim pulled this off? I’d have to buy him all the clipboards in the world.
“Ghastek, this is not a pleasure trip,” Curran said.
“You can’t go,” I added.
“Why ever not?”
“Because this undead will murder your vampire hit squad and I have no desire to get that bill,” Curran said. “Do yourself a favor. Sit this one out.”
Wow. He went there.
The vamp’s red eyes bulged, struggling to mirror Ghastek’s expression.
“Kate, perhaps you need to explain to your significant other that he is in no position to give me orders. Last time I checked, his title was Beast Lord, which is a gentle euphemism for a man who strips naked at night and runs around through the woods hunting small woodland creatures. I’m a premier Master of the Dead. I will go where I please.”
Once again I rode The Dude. Curran chose to drive the cart. We traveled side by side. Ghastek took point, while three of his journeymen flanked us. The fourth, the orange vampire, trotted next to me. It was piloted by Ghastek’s top journeywoman. Her name was Tracy and as navigators went, she wasn’t too bad.
Ghastek’s vampire reached Gunnar’s fork, marked by an old birch. Predictably, Gunnar lumbered out. “Come to see Ragnvald again?”
“Going to the glade.” I nodded at the cart. The deer’s moist dark eyes stared at the Viking.
Gunnar’s spine went rigid. “To see him?”
I nodded.
“Don’t go,” he said.
“I have to.”
He shook his head and stepped aside. “It’s been nice knowing you.”
I touched the reins and our small procession rolled on.
Ghastek dropped back, drawing even with The Dude. “Why the secrecy?”
“The Vikings don’t like to say Håkon’s name. The glade isn’t that far from here and he might hear.”
“What is he?”
He and Curran had that in common. Wave a secret in front of them and they would foam at the mouth trying to learn it. “He’s a draugr.”
The vamp hopped on the cart and peered at me, its eyes only a couple of inches from my face. “A draugr? A mythical Norse undead that’s supposed to guard the treasure of its grave?”
“Get off my cart,” Curran growled.
The undead hopped down. The vampire’s grotesque face twisted into an odd expression: the corners of its cavernous mouth pinched up, while its lips gaped open, displaying its fangs. It stared at me with blood-red eyes and bopped its head forward and back a few times.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m laughing at you.”
Kicking the vampire in the face with my foot would be counterproductive at this point.
“When I was a journeyman, I spent eighteen months in Norway, looking for draugar. I’ve camped in cemeteries in sub-zero temperatures, I’ve scoured fjords, I’ve dived into sea caves in freezing water. It was the worst year and a half of my life. In those eighteen months I didn’t find any credible evidence of the existence of draugar. Trust me when I say this: they don’t exist. Hence, my use of the word ‘mythical.’ As in, ‘not real.’”
I briefly contemplated punching the vampire in the nose. It wouldn’t hurt Ghastek any, but it would be immensely satisfying. “This draugr exists. Plenty of people have met him.”
“Oh, I have no doubt that they have met something, but it wasn’t a draugr. Don’t you see the signs? The mysterious glade, the path to which is guarded by a giant. The legendary undead with magical powers, who you can only meet once, and those who disobey that rule die a gruesome death.” The vampire waved his front limbs, fingers spread. “Woo-ooo. Frightening.”
“Those bearded, horn-helmeted bandits are conning you, Kate.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“There’s no need to feel bad about this. You’re a capable fighter, proficient with a blade, and you have intelligence and tenacity, but you don’t work with the undead. You have very little familiarity with the basic principles of necromancy, beyond its most practical applications. You lack the tools to recognize the hoax.”
The urge to grab the mind of the nearest vampire and use it to beat Ghastek’s vamp to a bloody pulp was overwhelming. Perhaps that was why Voron had insisted on steering me away from necromancy. He’d known there would be times that the temptation to show off would be too much.
“No worries. It’s a forgivable mistake,” Ghastek said. “However, it’ll cost us a day and the use of five vampires.”
“Humor me.”
“Oh, I intend to. I’ve had a stressful day and breaking this farce open will prove a wonderful way to vent the pressure.”
The vampire sauntered off.
“He doesn’t like to be wrong,” Tracy’s vamp said. I caught a hint of humor in her voice.
I couldn’t care less if he liked it. As long as his vampires stood between me and the draugr, it would buy me a couple of extra seconds to get away.
The old road led deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees grew taller and thicker, their long limbs thrusting at each other, as if trying to push their neighbors out of the way. Mist swirled between the trunks, first an ethereal haze shimmering along the ground, then a thicker blue fog that hugged the road, lying in wait. It swallowed the sounds: the hoofbeats of the horses, the creaking of the cart, and the occasional sigh from the deer in the back. All seemed muted.
Ahead a stone arch rose above the path, gray slabs of rocks tinted with moss. I halted The Dude. The cart rocked to a stop.
“There’s a path leading north just past the arch. We go on foot from here.” I hopped off the cart. “I need one of you to carry the deer.”
A purple bloodsucker crawled up on the cart. Sickle claws sliced at the rope securing the animal, and the vampire pulled the deer off and slung it over its shoulder.
“Which way will you be coming on the way back?” Curran asked.
“The glade is northeast from here.” I pointed to a tall oak to the left.
Curran pulled me close.
Ghastek’s vampire rolled his eyes.
“Remember the plan?” Curran said in my ear.
“Get in, get the information, and run like hell out of there.”
“See you in a few hours.”
I brushed his lips with mine. “See you.”
I grabbed my backpack and headed up the path.
The mist grew thicker. Moisture hung in the air, tinted with the odor of rotting vegetation and fresh soil. Somewhere in the distance a bird screamed. No movement troubled the still woods. No squirrels chattered in the canopy, no small game scurried away at our approach. Nothing stirred except for the vampires gliding alongside the path, their emaciated shapes flashing between the trees.
The path veered right and opened into a small glade. Tall pines framed it, the enormous dark trunks scratching at the sky. A carpet of dark pines needles sheathed the ground. Here and there rocks thrust from the forest floor.
“Put the deer right there.” I pointed to the center of the glade. The vampire unloaded the deer and hopped aside.
“I suppose we wait until the magic returns?” Ghastek inquired.
“You got it.” I sat on a fallen pine.
The vampire’s shoulders rose up and down. Ghastek must’ve sighed. “I suppose we might as well treat this seriously.” The vampire raised his left forelimb. A long yellow claw pointed at a tall birch on the left. “Observation Post there.” A claw moved to the right to a pine on the other side of the glade. “Another OP there. Give me a perimeter assessment.”
Two purple vampires scattered, took a running start, and scrambled up the indicated trees. The third dashed into the bushes. Only Ghastek and Tracy remained. His vampire sat on my right, her vampire sat on my left. Peachy.
A minute passed. Another.
Ghastek’s vamp lay down. “If half of the things said about draugar were true, it would revolutionize necromantic science. According to legend, they’re the spirits of warriors who rise from the grave to guard their buried possessions. They see the future, they control the elements, they shapeshift into animals. They turn into smoke and become giants.”
“Not at the same time,” I told him.
“What?”
“You said they turn into smoke and become giants. Not at the same time. They’re solid in giant form.”
“You’re still clinging to this fallacy?”
I leaned forward. “What would you have done if you had found a draugr in Norway, Ghastek?”
“I’d have tried to apprehend it, of course.”
“Suppose you live in a small village in Norway and you know a draugr is nearby. You bring him live game once in a while and you hope to God he leaves you the hell alone. Now some geeky hotshot foreigner shows up on your doorstep and explains to you how he’s going to go annoy this terrible creature for the sake of ‘necromantic science.’ You try to explain to him that it’s not a good idea, but he treats you as if you’re an idiot child.”
“I never treat people like infantile idiots,” Ghastek said.
I looked at him.
Tracy cleared her throat carefully.
“Go on,” he said.
“Would you take this foreigner to this undead monster and risk pissing it off, or would you steer him as far away from the draugr as possible and hope he’ll go away eventually?”
“That’s a sound theory, with one exception. I’m not that gullible.”
Fine. “Bet me.”
The vampire stared at me. “I’m sorry?”
“Bet me. If the draugr is a hoax, I’ll owe you a favor.”
“And if he’s real?”
“Then you will bring me a quart of vampire blood.”
“And why would you need vampire blood, Kate?”
Because I needed it to experiment with making armor out of it, that’s why. “I want to calibrate the lot of new m-scanners the Pack bought.” He didn’t need to know I was practicing to see how much of Roland’s talent had passed to me.
A hint of suspicion slid into Ghastek’s voice. “And you need a quart of blood for that?”
“Yep.”
The bloodsucker became utterly still as Ghastek mulled it over.
“If I win this silly game, you will tell me why Rowena came to see you after the Keepers affair.”
Sucker. “Deal.”
“Excellent.” He put emphasis on the “x” and the word came out slightly sibilant.
“You need a fluffy white cat. That way you can stroke it when you say things like that.”
Tracy’s vamp made a small noise that might have been a clearing of a throat or a choked-up laugh.
A purple vampire popped out of the bushes, dragging something behind it. The bloodsucker strained, tight muscle flexing across its back, and heaved what looked like a large collapsed leather tent into the open.
“We found human bones,” the vampire reported.
“In the ravine?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I knew about the spot. Immokalee had described it to me this morning, trying to scare me into not going. A few dozen yards to the north, the ground dropped sharply into a narrow fissure lined with human skeletons. Some still held their weapons. When a draugr sucked the flesh off your bones, he did it quick, like jerking a shirt off a body.
“We also found this.” The vampire indicated the tent.
Ghastek’s vampire raised the top edge, exposing a dark opening, and vanished into it. The leather shifted, mirroring the vampire’s movement inside it. The bloodsucker emerged into the clear air. “The design is ill-conceived. It is clearly too large for one person, but it has no structure or method of remaining upright as a tent, and besides, this side is completely open to the elements. Perhaps it’s some sort of communal sleeping bag?”
“It’s not a sleeping bag,” I told him.
“Would you care to enlighten me?” Ghastek said.
“Look at it from above.”
The purple vampire leaped onto the nearest tree and scurried up into the branches. A long moment passed and then it dropped on the ground next to me without a word.
“What is it?” Tracy asked.
The vampire’s face was unreadable, like a blank wall. “It’s a glove.”
The wind stirred the tree branches. The world blinked, as the tech vanished, crushed under the onslaught of a magic wave. Cold froze the glade. The other vampire burst from the bushes and came to rest by Tracy.
In the distance something wailed in an inhuman voice, its forlorn cry rising high above the treetops.
Gloom claimed the clearing. It came slowly, like molasses, from the dark spaces deep between the roots, washing over trees, leaching color from the greenery, drenching it in shadows, until the shrubs and foliage turned dark, almost gray. Behind the gloom, mist rose in thin wisps, tinted with an eerie bluish glow.
A crow cried overhead, its shrill caw impossibly distant.
“They are putting on quite a show,” Ghastek said.
“Yep.” I nodded. “Going all out. Viking special effects are out of this world.”
I pulled a canvas bundle out of my backpack and untied the cord securing it. Four sharpened sticks lay inside, each three feet long. I picked up a rock and hammered the first of the sticks into the ground at the mouth of the path. That was the way I’d run when it came time to get the hell out of there.
I moved along the edge of the clearing, sinking the sticks in at regular intervals.
“What is the purpose of this?” Ghastek asked.
“Protection.”
“Have I given you a reason to doubt my competence, Kate?”
“No.” I pulled a black box out of my backpack, took a black cloth out of it, and unfolded the cloth to extract an old pipe. The medicine woman had already packed it with tobacco.
“What is this?”
“A pipe.” I struck a match, puffed to get the pipe going, and got a mouthful of smoke for my trouble. The pungent tobacco scraped the inside of my throat. I coughed and started to circle the clearing, blowing smoke as I went.
“What sort of magic is this?” one of the journeymen asked.
“Cherokee. Very old.” If life was perfect, I’d have Immokalee herself do the ritual. It took years of training for the medicine woman to reach her power, but none of the Cherokees would go near the draugr. Unlike me, they had common sense. All the chants over the sticks and the pipe had been said already. All I had to do was follow the ritual and hope Immokalee’s magic was potent enough to work when an incompetent like me activated it.
I finished the circle, put the pipe away, and sat back on the log.
A pair of tiny eyes ignited by the roots of an oak to the left. No iris was visible—the entire eye was an almond-shaped slit of pale yellow glow.
“Left,” Tracy said. Her voice was perfectly calm.
“I see it,” Ghastek said.
Another pair sparked to the right, about a foot off the ground. Then another, and another. All around us the eyes fluoresced, clustered around tree trunks, staring from the underbrush, peering from behind rocks.
“What are they?” Tracy asked.
“Uldra,” Ghastek said. “They’re nature spirits from Lapland. They live mostly underground. I wouldn’t provoke them. Stay in the clearing.”
The eyes stared at us, unblinking.
A blast of icy cold ripped through the clearing. The uldra vanished as one. On the ground, the deer moaned, coming up out of its drugged state.
Here we go.
I reached into my backpack and pulled out a small leather satchel, a small plastic bear full of honey, and a canteen. No turning back now. I got up off the log and walked over to the center of the glade where a large stone waited. Ghastek’s and Tracy’s vampires trailed me.
I brushed the leaves from the stone. The inside of the rock had been hollowed out into a stone basin, large enough to hold about three gallons of liquid.
“When the draugr appears, don’t talk to him,” I said. “The longer we talk, the more time he has to lock onto our scent. We’ll have to fight to get clear anyway. No need to make things harder.”
No response.
“Ghastek? Do you understand me?”
“Of course,” he said.
“The Cherokee have set protective wards on the mountain. If we make it to the pillars by the road, we’re safe.”
“You said this before,” Ghastek informed me.
“I’m just reminding you.” This wouldn’t go well.
I set the canteen on the ground and loosened the drawstring cord securing the pouch. It opened into a square of leather in the palm of my hand. Inside lay six rune stones chiseled from bone, and a handful of beat-up silver coins: two etched with a sword and hammer and four with the Viking raven.
I cast the runes into the basin. They clicked, rolling from the stone sides. It took me a second to unscrew the canteen. Ale splashed on the runes, drenching the bone in liquid amber. The scent of malted barley and juniper wafted up. The bluish mist snapped at it like a striking snake.
“Patience, Håkon. Patience.”
I poured in the rest of the ale, emptied the honey into the basin, and stirred it with a branch. Magic spread from the runes into the honey and ale. I reached in and pulled the runes out, all except two: the rune of enemy binding and Þjófastafur, the rune that prevented theft.
The mist hovered by me.
I took a deep breath, grabbed the deer by the head, and heaved it onto the basin. Moist brown eyes looked at me.
“I’m so sorry.”
I pulled a throwing knife out and slit the animal’s throat in a single quick swipe. Blood gushed into the basin, hot and red. The deer thrashed, but I held its head until the blood flow stopped. The basin was a third of the way full. I stepped back and hefted the coins in my hand. They jingled together, sparking with magic.
“I call you out, Håkon. Come from your grave. Come taste the blood ale.”
Magic pulsed through the glade, ice cold and shockingly powerful. It pierced my skin, ripping its way all the way into my bones. I recoiled. Panic crested inside me like a huge black wave. Every instinct I had screamed, “Run! Run as fast as you can.”
I clenched my teeth.
The air reeked of fetid, decaying flesh. It left a sickeningly sweet patina on my tongue.
The mist congealed with an eerie moan and a creature stepped forth to the basin. A thick cloak of half-rotten fur hung off his shoulders, shielding the chain mail that covered him from elbow to the knee. The fur had thinned to long feathery strands, smeared with dirt. Long colorless hair spilled from his head in a tangled mess. His skin was blue, as if he had an intense case of argyria.
The draugr dropped by the basin, dipped his head, and lapped the blood like a dog. Death had sucked all softness from his flesh. His face was a leathery mask of wrinkles, his nose was a misshapen nub, and his lips had dried to nothing, baring a mouth full of long vampiric teeth. His eyes were awful: pale green, and completely solid, as if made of frosted glass. No iris, no pupil, nothing. Just two dead eyes behind an opaque green membrane.
I gave him a couple of seconds with the blood and squeezed the runes. They warmed my skin, forging a link to the two left in the blood ale. “That’s plenty.”
The undead raised his head. Blood dripped from his chin. A voice came, hoarse, like the creaking of trees in the wood. “Who are you, meat?”
Not good. “I’ve come to trade. Fair trade: fresh meat for an answer.”
The draugr dipped its head toward the blood. Magic pulsed from the runes. The creature let out a long sound halfway between a sigh and a growl.
Ghastek’s vampire moved to stand next to me.
The undead swiveled to the bloodsucker. “You bring me dead meat?”
“No. Dead meat guards me. Dead meat has no power over the ale. If you want to talk to dead meat, that’s between you and it.”
The draugr rose above the basin, shoulders hunched over. “Dead meat speaks?”
Ghastek shifted the vampire another step.
“I wouldn’t,” I told him.
The vamp halted. “Who are you?”
Would it kill him not to screw with my thing?
The draugr leaned on the stone. “I’m Håkon, son of Eivind. My father was a jarl and his father before him was one. The blood ale calls to me. Who are you, meat, that you interrupt my feeding?”
“I’m Ghastek Sedlak, Master of the Dead.”
The draugr’s mouth gaped wider. The creature rocked back and forth. “Dróttinn of the dead. I am dead. Do you style yourself my master too, little dead meat?”
Full stop. “Don’t answer that. Your ale is getting cold, Håkon. Have a taste.”
The runes in my hand cooled. The undead took a step toward me, then turned, as if drawn by a magnet, dropped on his knees and drank deeply, sucking up the blood in long greedy swallows.
“How did you come to be here?” Ghastek asked.
Damn it all to hell.
The draugr turned its unblinking eyes to the vampire and raised his head from the blood for a moment. “We came for gold.”
“All the way from Norseland?”
The draugr shook its head and drank.
“Kate,” Ghastek said. “Make him talk. Please.”
How do I get myself into these things? I gripped the runes. The draugr ducked down, trying to lick the blood, got within two inches of the red surface and stopped.
“From Vinland. The north skrælingar brought us gold to trade for weapons. They told us they bartered with the southern tribes for it. They said the southern skrælingar were soft. They were farmers, they said. Our seers had scryed the source of the gold, in the hills, not far from the coast. We took two ships and went looking for it.”
“Did you find the gold?” Ghastek asked.
The draugr reared back, his teeth on display. “We found woods, and giant birds, and skrælingar magic. We were retreating when a skræling arrow found me.”
“Is that why you rose? To punish the native tribe?” Ghastek asked.
He just wouldn’t stop talking.
The draugr’s clawed hands scratched the stone of the basin. Magic snapped from him, flaring like a foul banner. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
“To punish them? No. I rose to punish the ingrate dogs who threw me into a hole in the ground like a common thrall. Not one of them bothered to even place a stone to mark my grave. I killed some of them and ate their flesh, but a few still lived. I’ve searched for them, but I can’t find them.”
“You can’t find them, because they’ve been dead for a thousand years,” I told him. Damn it. Now Ghastek had me doing it.
The wrinkled mask of the draugr’s face twisted in derision. “So you say.”
Ghastek’s vamp leaned forward. “If you’re so powerful, why don’t you just leave?”
“He can’t. The Cherokee wards are locking him in. No more questions.”
“In that case—”
I brought my fist down on the vamp’s bald head. God, that felt good.
The vamp whipped around, glaring at me in outrage.
“Shut up,” I told him and turned to the draugr. “Blood ale, undead. If you want any more, you will grant me my boon.”
The draugr rose, slowly. His fur mantle closed about him. Cold spread from him. My breath turned into a wisp of vapor.
“Ask.”
“How do I find Ivar the Dwarf?”
“He lives in a hidden valley,” the draugr said. “Travel to Highlands and find Cliffside Lake. At the north edge of the lake, you will see a trail leading you to the mountain scarred by lightning. Make the offering of gold, silver, and iron, and the dwarf will permit you to enter.”
I released the runes and backed away. “The blood ale is yours.”
“It’s grown cold.”
I kept backing up.
Magic accreted around the draugr like a second cloak. “I do not want it. I want my blood hot.”
Mayday, mayday. “That’s not the deal we made.”
I passed the stick guarding the road.
“I make deals and I break them.”
The wooden stick between us shivered in the ground.
“There is no escape, meat.”
The cocoon of the draugr’s magic burst with icy fury, snapping at me with dark fingers. The stick shot from the ground and pierced the draugr’s head.
Behind me a wail of pure fury tore through the forest and Ghastek’s voice barked, “Secure the creature!”
Magic exploded with mind-numbing intensity. My eyes watered. The breath in my lungs turned into a clump of ice. The path veered right. As I took the turn at a breakneck speed, I saw the draugr, towering over the trees, a mantle of dark magic streaming from his shoulders as he ripped a vampire in half with his colossal hands.
“I have your scent,” the giant roared. “You won’t escape!”
The translucent flood of magic crested the edge of the glade and rolled down, chasing me.
The forest turned into a blurry smudge of green. I flew, jumping over the roots. Weeds slapped me.
The harsh stench of rot filled my mouth. Around me the trees groaned, as if pulled upright by an invisible hand. My throat burned.
I could almost see the road through the shrubs.
The path turned left and I leaped straight down, praying the old injury to my left knee wouldn’t flare up. The brush snapped under my weight and I tore down the slope, squeezing every last drop of speed out of my body.
A deep roar shook the ground.
No way to dodge, no direction to take but down.
A shadow fell over me. I threw myself forward. I rolled once, twice, catching a glimpse of a colossal clawed hand raking the forest behind me, flipped to my feet, and burst onto the road.
The pillar loomed to my right. I sprinted to it.
The air whistled. Something large crashed on the road ahead of me, bounced, and sprung to its feet. Ghastek’s vampire. Deep gashes scoured its flanks, oozing thick undead blood onto the sunblock. It looked like it had gone through a shredder.
The trees creaked behind me. The draugr had made it onto the road.
I ran like I’d never run before in my life.
The vampire froze for a fraction of an instant and galloped to the pillars.
My feet barely touched the ground. In my head my bad leg snapped like a toothpick.
The draugr’s magic whipped at me, slashing at my back. I went airborne, rolled, and hit the ground hard. My head swam. I rolled to my feet.
Taller than the trees, the enormous undead towered above me, his eyes spilling icy green mist. Ragged chain mail hung from his torso. Colossal iron pauldrons guarded his shoulders. Huge chunks of his flesh were missing, and bone glared through the holes.
Holy shit.
The draugr raised a foot the size of a car. His magic swirled about him in a stormy cloud.
Curran in his warrior form shot out of the treetop, flying through the air like a gray blur.
I stood still, presenting a clear target for Håkon.
The draugr stomped forward.
Curran smashed into the back of the undead’s neck. Bone crunched. The draugr spun, and I saw Curran ripping into the space between the neck vertebrae with his claws. Undead gristle flew.
The draugr roared, trying to swat at the Beast Lord. His head began to droop.
Two ribbons of green magic snapped backward from the draugr, aiming for Curran.
Oh no, you don’t. I opened my mouth and barked a power word.
“Ossanda.” Kneel, you undead sonovabitch.
The magic burst from me. It felt like someone had sunk claws into my stomach and tore out the muscle and my innards. The world went black for a tiny moment. I’d sunk a lot of magic into it.
The horrible creak of bone snapping rolled through the air. The draugr’s bony knees hit the road. The forest quaked.
I took a running start and sprinted at him.
The dazed undead raised its huge hands, trying to grab me. I veered left, avoiding the gnarled bone fingers, and scrambled up the giant’s body, climbing the chain mail.
Above me, Curran snarled.
The draugr slapped his chest, missing me by a couple of inches.
I pulled myself onto his shoulder and ran down the iron plate to his neck. Curran was ripping into the gristle. The undead flesh tore under his claws, and snapped back, regenerating.
I pulled Slayer and chopped at the gap he’d made. My saber smoked from the contact with undead flesh. The gap widened.
Curran grasped the edge of the two vertebrae and forced them apart. I cut into the cleft, slicing through the connective tissue.
Cut. Cut. Cut.
Cartilage crunched.
Magic stung me, weaving about me in green strands.
“Wait!” Curran growled.
I stopped my sword in midstrike. Curran jumped into the gap, his clawed feet on the edge of one vertebra, his hands on the other. He strained, pushing them apart. Steel-hard muscle bulged on his frame, shaking with effort.
The draugr howled.
Curran snarled, a vicious, short sound born of strain.
With a sickening screech, the draugr’s head fell and rolled off his body. The colossal torso toppled. I jumped and landed on the road, my sword in my hand. Curran dropped down next to me.
We ran. We sprinted to the pillars.
Behind us an eerie, unnatural noise announced the draugr reassembling himself.
The green vampire that had fallen on the road picked itself up and chased after us.
We were almost to the pillars.
A shadow fell over us.
Curran spun. His head melted, reshaping into a lion’s head. The Beast Lord roared.
The sound was like thunder. Deep, primeval, arresting, it froze the marrow in my bones. My instincts screamed and tried to drop me to the ground in a small quivering ball.
The draugr screeched to a halt.
We dashed forward.
The pillars flashed by our sides. I ran to a stop and turned around, my ribs hurting.
The undead giant strode toward us.
The pillars flashed with deep amber.
The draugr smashed into an invisible wall. Streaks of orange lightning clutched at his flesh. A deafening wail slapped my ears.
“I will kill you! I will gnaw the flesh off your bones! I will pick my teeth with your femurs!”
I vomited onto the ground.
Next to me Curran patted my back, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
The vampire next to me collapsed. The gashes on its body knitted together. A new pale skin slid over the cuts and began to smoke.
“You owe me vampire blood,” I told him.
“Yes, yes.” Ghastek sounded sour. “Do hand me that canvas before he burns to death.”
I jerked the canvas off the cart and held it up. “I just want to hear you say it.”
The vamp squirmed.
I shook the canvas a bit.
“Fine. The draugar do exist.”
“And I was right.”
“You were right. The canvas, Kate.”
I draped it over the vampire and looked at Curran. “Did you hear that?”
“I heard that.” Together we picked up the vampire and heaved the bloodsucker into the cart. “I still don’t believe it, but I heard it.”
Two vampires dashed past the raging draugr, one purple, one orange. The remains of Ghastek’s super-squad.
“Over here,” I waved. “Run to safety!”
“Could the two of you gloat a little more?” Ghastek said.
“Oh I could,” I said. “I definitely could.”
The vampire pulled the canvas back and peeked out, staring in the direction of the glade. “Double or nothing.”
“What?”
“Double or nothing, Kate. I can take him.”
Ghastek was a gambler. Knock me over with a feather. I sat on the cart. The draugr would rip them to pieces in ten minutes, tops.
“Knock yourself out,” Curran told him. “We’ll wait right here.”
“Don’t take too long,” I told him. “We have a child to save.”