Page 17 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 17

Magnus

I WAS MOSTLY JOINING Corym in Alfheim for moral support. I also had a few tricks up my sleeve. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

We left Vikingrune Academy with the setting sun. Corym knew very few people at the academy, so he had no reason to attend the burial ceremony. I, well . . . didn’t feel a rush of emotion as most normal people did when people died.

Death was an unavoidable part of war, and we were in the thick of it. I knew there would be more to come before this all ended.

And where does it end, I wonder?

The elf and I packed light. We had created a bond of our own, not only through the torrid situations with Ravinica filled with lust and vigor, but also with our own personalities. Like me, the elf was stoic. More proper, perhaps, because he was raised that way, yet we both shared a love for Ravinica that couldn’t be denied.

Our silvermoon and lunis’ai . Phrases that essentially meant the same thing, with his “silver-streaked love.”

As we traversed the mountainside to reach sea level of the Isle, we picked up a few supplies in Isleton before continuing on. This many miles out from the western side of the island where the battle had taken place, we didn’t fear for our safety.

The same couldn’t be said for the inhabitants of Isleton. News of the battle had reached the far corners of our island home, and the fear was palpable throughout the small town. The drinking hubs of Trond’s Pub and Liv’s Libations were packed full of patrons, who were treating this situation with an apocalyptic bent.

We stayed mostly to ourselves, trying to gather some knowledge about the whereabouts of our enemies. Isleton had always been a den for scouts and trackers who needed to make a living staying safe outside the walls of the academy.

The best places to find gossip were the taverns, after all, where lips were loose.

Unfortunately, we received contradictory information everywhere we turned, and eventually left Isleton with little gained knowledge.

Some of the men and women we spoke to said the draug had disappeared completely after reaching up through the ground to terrorize us. Others—including a particularly sloshed young man who said he had ridden out after the earthquakes began—told us the jotnar were cozying up at Telvos Mountains, holding camp there. That same man’s wife said they had traveled further east, into Delaveer Forest.

A farmer from the nearby fields told us they planned on relocating Isleton, picking up strakes to put down elsewhere, closer to the academy. His friends said that was bullshit—the town would defend their homes like the rest of us.

Finally, tales of dark shadows creeping through the woods ran rampant. Where they slunk was up for debate. In the Niflbog? According to one man. Further north, along the stretches of Selfsky Plains where no one went? Possibly.

Before we could get anymore confused, we exited Isleton and decided on our original trajectory: straight through the gut of Delaveer to the elf camp, where we’d dash into the portal.

Next morning, we were getting close. We hadn’t slept, hadn’t lit a fire during our short camp, and neither of us complained of the lack of sleep.

No sign of dark elves was a good sign, in Corym’s eyes.

As we drew close, I asked him the question that had been burdening me all night. “Where does this war end, Corym?”

The elf stared at me with his golden eyes before sipping from a waterskin. Stoppering it, he handed me the skin. “Who knows? Perhaps Maltor Vaalnath can give us some insight into their plans.”

“If they decide to help, you mean.”

“We’ll convince them it’s in everyone’s best interest, Magnus.”

“Your elven liege doesn’t know me, elf. I’ll be of little help.”

He quirked a fine brow at me. “Then why have you joined me? Why were you so immediate in rising to the occasion?”

I glanced away, continuing to move through the forest. “I have my reasons. They’ll come to light soon enough.”

Corym let out a small sound. “Secrets should not be kept between brothers.”

Brothers. He was right. As I glanced through the gnarled trees and thick pines ahead, I said, “Even if the light elves decide to help, I predict we’ll need more than just them.”

Corym stared hard at me as I became silent, letting him think over my words. “The Skogalfar,” he said after a time. “You believe you have the pull to get the wood elves to help us?”

“We’ll see,” I said simply. It was true that I hardly knew them, but something they had said about me in the past intrigued me.

The camp was just over the next hill, so we shut up to get to work.

Creeping over the incline, crouched, I Shaped runes around me. Corym had his elven blade drawn, close to his side. Our eyes moved on a swivel. So far, no sign of any dark elves protecting the portal.

We stopped at the summit and went to our bellies to survey the scene. Heads low, we searched, and Corym nodded to me silently, jutting his chin at a specific point in the razed camp.

Though there was no immediate sign of anyone here, I noted the fresh tracks of boots embedded in the grass where he pointed with his chin. Morning dew had traced around the footsteps, where they would have been covered at any other time.

Nodding, I took a dagger from my belt and nicked my arm. I dragged the blade over two previous scars, wincing at the fresh cut that drew blood. I used my Shaped runes from the base of the hill to draw figures around us, and they began to form.

It was a clear morning, with no mist to help us traverse our mad rush. The cabin holding the portal was about fifty yards away, at the end of the camp.

My hands moved to silently craft the runes, and before long the shadows around us swelled and multiplied. Next, I drew another Shape, using a new directive with the source of my power, the blood dripping down my forearm burning and sizzling to create a fresh scar.

What would have been a few measly shadow-figures from a regular runeshaper became nearly a dozen with my added bloodrending. Their frames took on humanoid shapes and features, including cloudy eyes and smoky hair tendrils. They circled us underneath the hill, out of sight, unmoving because they’d been given no direction.

With my new Shape and directive chosen, I started flinging the shadows downhill, into the fray of the village. They quickly dissipated and emerged elsewhere—to the west, our left, among the trees at the edge of Delaveer. East, in the empty glades and meadows.

Then I cast my third and final rune, and the shapes began to move among the brush, foliage, and trees.

Shouting abruptly spread throughout the camp, and what had seemed like a peaceful, serene morning scene became chaos.

Dark faces appeared from pockets of trees and plains where they’d been hiding, crouched and waiting in ambush. Yet these weren’t the dark faces of my shadow-images, because my shadows could not speak.

Dark elves swarmed the camp. A crowd of three headed left toward the trees where my shadows acted like decoys. Another group of three headed east toward that section.

The Dokkalfar thought they were being ambushed.

Well that explains where the dark elves have gone!

Corym and I were up immediately from our bellies, dashing down the hill as the route emptied for us like parting seas.

We sprinted full-bore. My thighs ached as we reached the bottom of the hill, the portal cabin closing in fast.

Hope filled my chest, my mind whirling.

A figure stepped around from the side of the cabin, black blade drawn.

It was the leader of the dark elves with the white bun atop his head, a cruel grin on his face. His free hand gestured freely.

“Mind the gap!” Corym shouted.

All around us, the other dark elves were speaking their harsh tongue to regroup, realizing they’d been duped and distracted. They closed in on us from the sides.

I calculated Corym’s words, then understood their meaning a second later as a pit-trap of blackness opened in front of me—the same kind this elf had cast the first time that nearly got me and Kelvar killed.

This time, I was ready for it, and I hopped over the yawning hole while drawing my steel.

Corym cast elven magic, green energy coalescing around him. “Gresh’kellen!” he shouted, and I wondered if he knew this dark elf by his name. They had fought before, outside Elayina’s tree-cave, and I knew their skills were nearly equal.

“Go!” Corym yelled as he dispelled a black tendril of magic from Gresh’kellen with a spell of blinding sunlight.

Their blades met with a mighty clang—black and silver energy colliding.

I streamed past the dark elf leader and pulled up short just outside the portal, worry wracking my features as I spun around.

The six dark elves from the fringes closed in fast, their hands waving in madness, a blight of power rising up from their gestures.

Corym would die if he stayed to fight and defend my retreat.

So I pulled some trickery of my own.

One second, he was matched in battle with Gresh’kellen, their swords singing in a metallic blur. The next, I Shaped and gave our enemy a taste of his own medicine.

Gresh’kellen hissed and sliced his blade in a downward arc toward Corym’s rising steel, meant to parry—

But the dark elf met only air in a great whoosh .

A black hole had taken Corym’s body.

Corym now stood ten feet away from the dark elf, directly in front of me.

Before my friend could gain his bearings, I wrapped him in a hug from behind, shouldered the door open behind us, and fell into the portal, leaving the dark elves screaming in their harsh language as they descended on the cabin.

We emerged from the portal what felt like a century later. With Corym wrapped up in my arms as we went through, he dissipated from my grasp once the eerie green and blue tinges of the portal took shape around us. I was on my own, traversing the strange plane, until I found the bright beacon harkening to my need.

Alfheim was balmy, hot, and trapped in a midday green glow. We were in the Kiir’luri forest once more, among the ritualistic elfstones of the clearing.

We took a moment to take stock, catching our breaths.

“Little excitement never hurt anyone,” I told my elf comrade.

He grinned at me, getting to his feet from his knees and dusting himself off. “I had him.”

“Gresh’kellen? That’s his name?”

He nodded.

“What about the other six closing in on you? Did you have them too, elf?”

Corym glanced away but remained smiling. “What is it your people say? Touché, bloodrender.”

“How do you know the dark elf commander?”

His face turned serious. “Through combat only.”

“How long have you known him?”

His piercing gaze swiveled to mine. “Decades, Magnus.”

I left it at that, understanding by his expression he didn’t want to talk about it. I’d respect it.

As I walked past Corym, clapping him on the shoulder, I said, “Next time you’ll have him for sure, brother.”

He didn’t move with me. “Where are you going?”

I looked back over my shoulder, pointing into the distance, into the strange trees of this world. “Heira? Your nation?”

Corym said, “May as well wait for the inevitable. I believe the people you wish to speak with will be here before long.”

I shrugged and sat in the glade. We had made good time here. We could use the rest.

Sure enough, we didn’t have to wait more than an hour before the trees around us rustled and the bronze-hued Skogalfar scouting party came into the clearing. They had their silver-tipped spears drawn, their breechcloths flapping on hard, lean muscles. Their leader stepped to the front, taller than his kin, with his silver hair dappled black and brown.

Corym bowed. “Hunter-Chief Jhaeros of the Northern Kiir.”

The man grunted, speaking in his own tongue.

Corym translated, turning to me. “Prince and Bloodless One,” he calls us. “His wardtracers said there’d be one arrival based on the spirit-blood changes, yet there are two of us. He was somewhat surprised, until he realized it was you.”

Because he can’t detect my blood, I thought, nodding along.

“The doppelganger is dead,” Corym said in Elven, then translated. “ Ser’karioth is reborn”—the Lightbearer, Ravinica—“and Dokkalfar have stormed Midgard with jotnar on their side.”

A few murmurs ripped through the two-dozen wood elves at mention of Ser’karioth.

“What is it you want from us?” Jhaeros asked through Corym, showing no emotion or rush. At least his spear was down. “Nothing you’ve mentioned impacts the Skogalfar.”

“Wrong,” I said, also through Corym’s translation as I stepped up at his urging. “The dark elves and giants will storm Alfheim next, once they have Ravinica in hand. The last dragonkin changes everything, and you know it.”

I was trying to call their bluff, based on the reaction at the news of Ravinica’s dragon wings. That was a big deal for all elves, as Elayina had promised it would be.

Jhaeros snorted at me, looking me up and down, and spoke harshly, to which Corym said, “He wonders what the Bloodless One has to offer, or why he cares.”

“My blood,” I said simply—the same story I’d lived through my whole life. Giving it away like a drug people couldn’t get enough of. “Ask him if his people have mages who can utilize my blood. I daresay they do.”

Corym and Jhaeros spoke at length, keeping everyone on their toes. I couldn’t tell the way Jhaeros was leaning based on his words and posture alone. He didn’t want to give too much away.

Finally, Corym nodded. “He says his shamans would take a look at you, see what they can do.” Clearing his throat, he faced me fully, with his brow threading. “Asking for myself, Magnus . . . what do you think they’ll be able to do with it?”

I sighed. “The same thing Vikingrune Academy wants with it, Corym. I think they’ll be able to use it to create super soldiers. Short of that, to create their own ‘bloodless’ mode of transportation. Can the Skogalfar imagine that? Skirting through the realms undetected, using their stealth at an advantage no other realm can use? Giving them the ability to avoid anyone who might do harm to them?”

After Corym nodded his understanding, he and Jhaeros exchanged more words. This time, I saw the expressions light up on the faces of the bronze warriors.

Then the light elf turned to me. “They’re intrigued.”

“Thought they might be.”

Corym crooked a smile. “Only question he has now, bloodrender, is what do we want in exchange for this power?”