Chapter 45 Eyrun
Eyrun
Three days till the Hunter’s Moon
“We’ve picked up a tail,” Ven said in Old Norse. “A fox.”
“Ah, your stone-cold fox?” Eyrun replied in the same tongue. Chiyo was stealthy as the night was long, but somehow Ven always sensed her first. “So now we have a spy spying on spies who are spying.”
The sisters had come to the demon realm of Grimrock, seeking the answer to one question: Who do we annihilate for their strigoi folly?
Last week, they’d scoured Rhun, expecting raucous demons to brag about their coup in some tavern. Instead, the realm had been strangely subdued, tight-lipped and watchful.
Never a good sign.
Their Rhunian king—a fire demon named Pyrrik—was as unpredictable as a wildfire, but he’d been more measured over the last few decades. In contrast, the Grimrock king—Morath—was a stone demon reputed to be as immovable as bedrock. What would the sisters find in his kingdom tonight?
Ven clearly tired of being followed. She whirled around and charged the hooded Chiyo. “Sneaking up on us? You really do have a death wish.”
To her credit, Chiyo didn’t retreat. “I’m catching up with you. I want to be a part of this mission.”
“Why?” Ven’s voice tightened as tension rippled between them.
“That attack affected me too,” Chiyo said, her gaze briefly dipping from Ven’s runes to her lips.
“I want to know who did it and why the Coffin Valkyrie warned us. I heard you were in Rhun recently and figured you’d come here next, following the pressure lines before you strike the witches.
But the Riders have vowed to the Lore they had nothing to do with it.
They also asked around, and no warlock would own to it.
So I don’t think anything mystical portaled the monsters in. ”
“That leaves teleportation. Demons and leeches,” Eyrun said. “Which we can handle. So why would we need you to be part of our mission?”
“You’d be surprised what I can do in a pinch, and a skilled fighter is always welcome.” Chiyo patted her sword.
Eyrun snorted. “You think we’re going to get in a pinch?” Aside from Eyrun’s abilities, Ven was the Lightning Rider, a legendary warrior with only one real weakness. Granted it was a big one. But it rarely came up, not much at all—
“Do what you want,” Ven told the shifter. “Just stay out of our way.”
Behind Chiyo, Eyrun rolled her eyes at Ven and mouthed, Stay outta our way.
Ven marched on, her look alone delivering the addendum.
Eyrun and Chiyo followed.
Even hooded, the Valkyries drew stares. Demons turned their heads as the trio passed, visibly affected—hands rubbing horns, mouths half open.
Demons were attracted to Valkyries like horned flies to honey. Some claimed the word “horny” came from how demons reacted to shield-maidens. Eyrun didn’t doubt it.
When more demonkin jolted as the sisters passed, Chiyo exhaled. “They really are obsessed with your kind.”
“Oh, shifters are too,” Eyrun said, mischief in her heart. “We can’t even go to the shifter shire where you live. Hands everywhere. I mean, not you, of course. Just people exactly like you.”
Chiyo narrowed her eyes. “If you can’t walk through a crowd without causing a stir, how are we supposed to spy?”
Ven answered, “The same way we always do in demon territory. We pick a fight.”
“And that accomplishes what?”
Eyrun said, “You’ll see.”
Ven strode into the bustling market, drew her hood off, and yelled, “You there!” She pointed at the largest demon present, a hulking slab of a male with massive horns, froglike skin, and not a stitch of clothing.
His breed—mammoth demon—was too big for clothes.
“You looked at me the wrong way. I challenge you to combat.”
“Valkyrie?” he grunted. “Fighting no. Fucking yes.”
Ven said, “I vow to the Lore that if you can beat me, I’ll fuck you. But if I win, you vow to answer all my questions honestly and completely.”
Eyrun leaned in and murmured to Chiyo, “The big ones always make the vow.”
The mammoth demon thumped his chest. “Sword no. Fight fists.”
“Agreed.”
Eyrun studied Chiyo’s reaction. “You don’t want her sleeping with anyone else, do you?”
Chiyo sniffed. “Or maybe I wince in the face of anatomical impossibilities.” She gestured to the demon, already half hard, his warty penis the size of a tree trunk. “And what about the old saying? Enrage not a demon.”
“Superseded by another: Dick not with Valkyries.”
Eye roll. “Does this ploy actually work for information?”
“Has for centuries.” Or it had—until their last trip to Rhun.
There, Ven had pinned down a huge demon who confessed that none in the land would attack Valkyries because the king forbade it. Ven had sensed more, pressed him—
—and King Pyrrik himself had appeared, incinerating the ground around the two combatants, a warning shot before a kill.
“I forbade aggression against you,” he’d said, eyes like flames. “That doesn’t mean I tolerate the reverse.” With a sneering bow, the infernal high lord had traced away.
But that was then. A new round was about to begin as Ven and the mammoth finished making their vows. She crossed to Eyrun and handed over her sword.
“Look out!” Eyrun barked.
The mammoth traced behind Ven and punched her square in the back of the head. She shot forward like a missile, smashing into a pub wall. A Ven-shaped hole gaped in the rustic brick.
“Fuckity-ugh,” Eyrun murmured. “She’s going to scorch the Skein.”
Moments later, Ven stalked out of the pub, brick dust on her face and murder in her gaze. As lightning struck in a staccato succession, her pupils turned Valkyrie silver.
Demons whistled low. Some of the miniature breeds ducked from the bolts and whimpered.
The mammoth’s erection wilted.
Ven cracked her neck as more lightning strobed in the background. A bolt hit the ground directly behind her, making her hair whip.
More whimpering.
Then she moved.
She blurred forward, reappearing beside the mammoth, his severed balls already in her blood-drenched hand. She flung the weighty sack away without breaking stride.
The demon collapsed with a shriek, stemming blood with his palms. Onlookers groaned and turned their knees in.
Ven vaulted over his chest, sprang over his head, and snapped his horns off mid-flight. She landed lightly and held them up to the crowd. Then she returned to stab his eyes out with them, leaving the horns planted in a gruesome tableau.
“See no!” he wailed. “Balls no!”
That’s my sister. Eyrun couldn’t have been prouder. Beside her, Chiyo looked decidedly less starstruck. Her fighter code probably involved restraint and shit like that. Gratuitous maiming would be “unsporting” or something.
Ven crouched by the demon’s ear. “Did anyone in Grimrock teleport strigoi into Valhalland?”
The mammoth, blind and bawling, plucked out the horns and clutched them like treasured young. “None dare. No, says king! Morath says no!”
He ruled with a literal stone fist; Eyrun couldn’t imagine his subjects crossing him.
“Then who brought them?” Ven demanded.
“Witches? Know no! Bloodreach? Hungry kingdom. Rumbling.” These demonkin might sense things in the neighboring Bloodreach. “Feet feel. Rumbling!”
Vague leads. No real answers.
But at least they had the next target for their investigation. Leeches, here we come.
“You ready?” Eyrun called.
Ven nodded, lightning fading, violence receding from her in slow waves. She scooped up the demon’s ball sack, slung it over her shoulder like a saddle, and rejoined them.
Chiyo’s face went pale.
Eyrun sighed. Fuckity-ugh, vixen. Trophies are important.
Ven brushed past them, voice low and merciless, “Whoever actually sent the strigoi? May the gods pity them.” She glanced over her shoulder, her storm-bright eyes promising carnage. “Because the Valkyries sure as hells won’t.”