Page 47 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 47

Arne

I WAS MOMENTARILY WHISKED away from the battle with the sight of black dragon wings flying overhead, through the smoke.

My stomach tightened as I wondered if it could be Swordbaron Korvan joining the battle, making things even worse.

But no. That radiant face, that lovely frame and body I had become so intimate and devoted to—I knew it was Ravinica.

A smile cracked my dry lips.

Then an arrow whizzed through the air, too close to her, and my smile faltered. Luckily she dive-rolled to the side, wings closing around her body, before swinging open and carrying her out of my sight deeper into the academy.

Snapping back to the fight at hand, rage filled me. “Don’t you fucking dare, assholes!”

My scream joined the chorus of other shouts, cries, and clangs of battle. The scent was a pungent mixture of steel, blood, and sulfuric magic. I was close to the crumbled edifice of the southern wall, joined with Axel Osfen’s soldiers and my mate Magnus, locked in a dire fight to push the enemies back.

My body was tired, but I couldn’t give up. Thane Canute was next to me, singlehandedly fighting the trollish club-wielding jotun and putting up a valiant fight. The shield wall at my back protected my flank, but I was out of file—a few feet in front of them—and knew I was in danger.

Thankfully Magnus had my back, his cloak fluttering and tattered as he did everything he could to cut down dark elves coming at us.

The bastards were fast. They charged at the barricade of shields with their faces grinning violet in the night, skittering back before any spearheads could touch their flesh.

Vikingrune warriors were trained for defensive, methodical combat. These Dokkalfar were skirmishers, however, and brought a different skill-set to the battlefield. The only solace I got, knowing we were outgunned, was that they weren’t breaking our numbers or hitting us particularly hard.

Almost like they were waiting for something.

Parrying an elf and stepping back, I Shaped a rune near my face. The letters of the rune brightened with a glowing sapphire tone before vanishing in the air, and I reached into Niflheim to power my spell with frigid ice—so familiar and welcoming in my grip.

A flash of white erupted from my hand as I pushed it forward, directing the rune over the Dokkalfar’s head, and the others around him.

Brisk snowfall joined the choking smoke and dust, creating a thick fog of powder.

“Now!” I yelled, and Hersir Osfen saw the opening I had presented them with my diversion.

Shields surrounded me, swallowing me up on my left and right, before the cadets marched into the snow to bring Hel to our enemies.

I dashed away before I could see the outcome of my misty spell, eager to help Magnus off to the side. He was paired with Thane Canute. The Huscarl battlelord was taking the brunt of the damage from the jotun he fought.

A tall man, nearly seven feet, he was dwarfed by the troll that held a dark, bloody club almost as large as him. But his shield was the great equalizer, and no matter how hard the jotun swung or with how much power he put behind his blows, the club kept bonking off Canute’s shield.

I grinned and rushed in—

Faltering when a gout of fire streamed past my face, singeing my golden hair.

With a gasp, I pulled up short and looked left.

My jaw dropped before I clenched my teeth together.

Another jotun was arriving from the lower levels of the mountain pass, rising above the slightly curved ground. This one was ten feet tall and built like a granite golem. Its skin was the black of charcoal and the igneous hue of cooled lava. Between the pores of its tough exterior in a network of veins and arteries were fire-orange and crimson-red lines, reaching from as low as its thighs all the way up to its neck. The monster’s face was an onyx wall, vaguely humanoid with topazes for eyes.

A jotun from Muspelheim itself, the realm of fire.

My eyes widened as his rocky hands pushed out in front of him and he stopped walking toward us. A vortex of smoke and fire sucked all the oxygen out of the air around him, and dark elves scattered away as the thing started marching toward me, Canute, Magnus, and the other jotun.

“Mag!” I cried out, pointing.

He spun away from the rotund jotun, speeding under its swinging arm, and went to a knee. His auburn hair swung off his forehead as he followed my finger toward the fire jotun.

“Fight fire with ice, lad!” my friend called out hoarsely.

I manned up and nodded firmly, then Shaped and put my hands to the ground. My energy was running low on reserves, every casting starting to affect me. But I had to keep going.

A sheet of slippery, glistening ice like a frozen river surface crackled out from the ground in front of me toward the fire jotun.

As the monster plodded toward us, the ice sizzled under his bare feet. He wasn’t slipping or losing footing like others had, walking through the spell instead, breaking up chunks of my glacial spell.

“Fuck,” I groaned, and with a quick Shape I changed the directive of my spell. Different elements from a separate part of Niflheim charged my rune and I lifted from my kneeling position to my feet, bringing up my arms in a flurry like a conductor during an orchestral crescendo.

The ice abruptly changed to water, rising in a swirling typhoon around the fire jotun.

He roared and spread his fiery hands, the hissing and sizzling of his flames put out by my spell.

I gave a crooked grin at my momentary victory—

Gasping as the giant charged through the maelstrom of frothy water in a trot. Hands extended, embers burned in those huge palms.

“Look out!” I cried, quickly dashing and rolling to the side just as a wave of fire heated the air where I’d just been.

The inferno dissipated at the wall far behind us, and I glanced back at the bloodcurdling cries. Three cadets and one dark elf had been torched, their bodies like flaming trees as they ran around aimlessly before dropping as smoldering husks.

Ash rose from the battlefield. The wall behind them was stained black from soot, and I suddenly realized where the big explosion had come from earlier that broke down our wall.

This fucker right here.

Canute stepped away from the club jotun in a masterful pivot and bashed his shield into the side of the fire giant. It rocked the giant with an explosive force field of energy, but even with all his strength behind the blow the jotun only stumbled a few feet away.

Then it turned its ire on Canute.

“Fall back!” the Thane called out in a booming voice that brooked no argument. “Behind the wall!”

Magnus was beside me now, sweat spilling down his forehead. “I lost my bloodrend, Arne. Can’t use it again until I get more power.”

I glared at him. “Can’t you just slice into yourself to draw more power?”

“Doesn’t work like that. I need rest, much as I hate to say it. These jotnar are fucking impenetrable.”

I nodded, folding my lips into my mouth to think. The field was a wasteland of bodies, fire, and clanging steel. The losses on our side were innumerable, and the dark elves weren’t faring too well either.

We had put up a valiant fight, but couldn’t keep pushing the enemy back and sustain these losses. It wasn’t tenable.

“Then we’d better listen to Canute.”

Magnus nodded and we turned to run toward the hole in the wall, back on our side of the conflict before our advance had brought us beyond the southern gate.

“Arne!” a voice called overhead.

Furrowing my brow, my head veered to the sight of the friendly Huscarl Grant, who was standing atop the rampart near the edge of the crumbled section of stone. His finger frantically pointed down past us, below the path that led up to the gate from the base of the mountain.

I chanced a look over my shoulder.

From my slightly elevated position on this hillock, I could see deeper into the steep decline where the passageway continued down the mountain and held all the dark elf reserves.

There, three more jotnar stood, seemingly in communication with one another. Surveying the fight from their vantage, they looked . . . bored. It was odd seeing them unaffected by the combat surrounding them.

Two of the jotnar were the trollish, brown-green giants of the first one we’d fought, while the third looked unique. She was slightly shorter than the others, yet still over eight feet tall—broader and larger than any human in existence. Her skin was an ashen gray, and a great skull helmet covered her head, fixed with fetishes and ornaments of bones and metal. From her helmet, which looked like a skull of the giant bull creature we had fought, rose two curving horns. She wore leathery black straps fixed to her thick thighs, bare up top with giant hanging breasts, and an aura of decay and death surrounded her.

More importantly, small man-sized holes surrounded her as she waved her hands around vaguely. Two draug sprouted up from the ground next to her, crawling out like unholy whelps being birthed from the earth itself.

I gasped. She’s the necromancer controlling the draug! Our first sight of her!

The female jotun was at least two-hundred yards away, and there were dozens if not hundreds of elves between us, so we weren’t going to get to her anytime soon. But at least we have a target now, to stop the draug from rising.

Looking back to the wall, I started to say, “Good eye, Grant! Now get down—”

The friendly Huscarl was slumped forward over the angled section of the parapet, face-down, an arrow lodged through his throat.

“No! Grant . . .”

He’d been shot dead in the time it had taken for him to point out the enemy.

Magnus grabbed my arm and yanked me beyond our wall of allies, who were starting to regroup for another wave of attacks.

In the center of the hole created by the explosion, Thane Canute stood like a gallant watchman, the Defender of Vikingrune posted up and taking on both jotnar at the same time, defending our retreat behind our lines.

Gods help us. How are we ever going to win this?

My luck changed when I spotted the pale faces of humans among the enemy—scared, shaking humans who fought against us because their martyr told them it was the right thing to do.

But that martyr was gone. And in Frida’s place was my long-time ally, Dieter, near the front of the dark elf contingent making their way toward Thane Canute and the jotnar.

I caught his eye through the tumult of dust, swords, and battle.

With a nod and a fierce set to my jaw, I said, “Now, old friend. If you’re going to do it, make your move. Turn this tide.”

He couldn’t hear me from this distance, separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of bodies. But he could read my lips well enough, and jolted with a start when his eyes landed on mine.

With a nod, Dieter turned away from the dark elves.

And within minutes, the rank of Dokkalfar closest to us started to call out to their kin in Elvish—desperate, angry words I couldn’t understand.

Dark elves began to fall from spears in their backs, swords at their necks. Chaos ensued, with our enemy twisted in two different directions.

The Lepers Who Leapt had made good on their promise to aid Vikingrune when we needed it most. The magicless sods of the Isle who had never been given a chance . . . now had the fate of the whole island in their hands.

My simple instruction—no, my plea had inadvertently given them the dignity and acknowledgement they’d always craved. They were turning the tide of battle.

And that was how we were going to win this.