43. Davyn
Forty-Three
Davyn
The taste of war hung heavy in the air, singing my name as I raced beside Starkad. Battle . I sensed it when I found Azzie and Finn. Fight . The scent had lingered in my nostrils since, tempting and calling to me. Happy .
The beast ached to be a part of it, especially with other warriors. Another Berserker. An ally. Wolf friend foe .
That was a great way to describe Starkad.
The chorus of battle drew us toward what looked like a low-hanging black cloud in the distance. As the hoard rushed us, it was easy to see the swarm of metamoura as individual threats rather than a single enemy. Dozens of them.
The creatures were an ancient sort of vampire, but once one of them drained their prey, the victim died, and the creature became a clone of them, rising up to take their place. Several flew in to sink their teeth into us, and I batted them aside without pause.
Azzie better not be facing these. She could take care of herself, and I trusted her in combat. However, she was still mortal.
Still mortal .
The thought clashed with the rest of my mind.
She was powerful. More competent than many gods I’d known.
Not strong enough for this. Pack. Family .
A metamoura latched onto my arm and sank its teeth deep, and my bear roared in irritation, rushing to the surface. I couldn’t lose myself completely to the Berserker, but I let enough out to grasp his strength, and dove deeper into combat.
“ What are you doing? ” Starkad’s voice was in my head as the two of us tore our way through the nuisance. If I didn’t hear his words spoken aloud, he was full Berserker… but still in control enough to form full sentences?
“Fighting.” This wasn’t skill. More see. Smack. Kill. Stick and move.
Starkad wasn’t family. Not pack. I liked side-by-side combat with him, though.
Azzie .
Safe. Away from here.
I sank my teeth into a metamoura, snapping it and tossing it aside.
Starkad moved fast through the mess. “ Stop holding back .”
A screech filled the air. A shadow passed over us. Dragon . The thought made me look up. Huge leathery wings beat the air. Flame mirrored in its scales.
Dragons didn’t fight in wars. They already knew the outcomes. Didn’t care.
Another bite yanked me to the fight. All that mattered. The fight. The kill. The celebration and the next fight.
The metamouras were all dead. We needed the next fight. Starkad knew where, and I followed.
When was the last time I’d seen metamouras? The clear question jammed its way through my bear’s insistence I keep chasing and killing.
Malsumis.
Azzie. Fight.
What? The clash of rational thought and Berserker gnawing to be free stopped me in my tracks.
Starkad stopped a few meters away and growled. He looked like a wolf standing on two legs. “ Come on .”
Malsumis was one of the few beings who could summon those lizards. Azzie’s other parent, who was sealed away.
“ Stop fucking around. Let’s go .” Starkad’s voice in my head overlapped with his insistent snarl in my ears.
If I let go of the leash on my beast, I wouldn’t make that kind of sense. It took a lot of control and practice to stay conscious in Berserker form. Starkad hadn’t been that when I saw him a few days ago.
My bear whimpered and roared in my head. Azzie. Fight . The conflicted thoughts matched my more nuanced ones.
Starkad flexed his claws. A blackened arm that looked like organic metal. That hadn’t been there the other day either.
“What happened to your arm?” Something wasn’t right.
“ We need to move, ” Starkad replied.
This wasn’t right. My head wasn’t right.
Fight?
It was an illusion. A test. A trap. Somehow I’d forgotten. I needed to get back to Azzie.
Starkad charged into my path as I turned to leave. “ Wrong direction ,” he said.
He might be in control, but the beast was still there under the surface. I saw it in his movements and actions, and how similar it was to what I’d been slipping into.
I stepped forward. “Move. I have to get back to Azzie.”
“ No. We have to fight. ”
“You wouldn’t leave Kirby in this situation.” I knew because he’d searched for a thousand years to find her.
“ I did leave Kirby. She’s a capable warrior .”
Valkyries didn’t fight. They could, but it wasn’t why they existed. They oversaw battles; they didn’t participate.
Azzie was a capable warrior too, but this wasn’t war, it was magic. Now that I remembered, it was obvious. “Move.” I rushed Starkad, knocked him aside with my shoulder, and broke into a full sprint toward the building we’d left moments ago.
Starkad chased, biting my heels and lunging.
I had to dodge, but I wouldn’t be able to outrun him. Even if I was a full bear, he’d be faster. “You said you wouldn’t test me,” I shouted into the air.
Starkad locked his teeth into my calf.
I stumbled, but kicked the fake-wolf away, running and pushing through the pain.
“ I also told you I don’t have full control here. This isn’t me .” That was Tania’s voice in my head.
As Starkad lunged, I dodged again, and let more of the bear out. Enough to fold myself onto all fours, to have the power of those stronger muscles to run. I pushed myself as hard as I could. I needed to get to Azzie.
My muscles burned and my lungs ached from exertion and smoke, but a glance over my shoulder told me Starkad was gone.
The only thing that I knew was real here was Azzie. The only thing that mattered was getting back to her.
“ You’ll need Zeke .”
No, I didn’t. Wherever he was, whether it was him or not, wherever the fuck Finn had gone, they could stay there.
I reached the warehouse. No one. I smelled Azzie in the air, but not here. Not for several minutes. Did she go with Kirby? Of course she had. She was fighting.
A scream. Azzie . I was already running toward the sound, using my nose to confirm this was the right direction. One hundred meters maybe, and getting closer with every second.
If she was hurt?—
Three teenagers were running in the opposite direction, and then I saw her.
I swore the world slowed to a crawl, as massive blocks of brick rained down, heading for Azzie. I leaped toward her to make the last few meters, and flung my body over hers as rock and mortar bit into my back. The world crawled.
The rain of debris assaulted me, an enemy I couldn’t fight back against. Gashes cut along my arms and back. Bruises and welts swelled.
They would heal soon. She was safe.
“I’m nothing here.”
Was that her? Did she believe that?
You’re everything . I couldn’t say the words aloud without choking on the dust.
When the building stopped falling, I flung the rubble aside enough to roll off of Azzie, and onto my ass, to sit. To catch my breath.
She knelt next to me and studied me. She was worried. As she rested a hand on my cheek, comfort flowed into me.
“You saved me.” She sounded sad. Frustrated?
We’d confront all of that when we were free and her test was over. “Find us a way out of here,” I said. She could find doorways. We could leave this fake war—this mockery—behind.
“I can’t.”
“You can. I’ve seen you do it.”
“We have to find Zeke first, and fight the final boss.”
My anger surged at his name. Always Zeke. Always. She knew him the instant she saw him, but couldn’t tell me from a weak-willed doppelg?nger. I slammed my fist into the ground. “Leave Zeke here. He’s going to destroy you.” Why didn’t she see this? Why was she so hung up on— “There are fates worse than death.”
She stared me down, seemingly unafraid of the outburst. “I’m not walking away without him. I’m the reason he’s here.”
“Finn’s the reason he’s here. The reason you’re here. Find us a door.”
“If I do that, it will lead to another illusion. Then another.” She sounded certain. “I signed on for a test that I swore I’d finish or die. Leaving early wasn’t one of the options.”
“The rules have changed.” I wanted that to matter, but magic contracts didn’t tend to make exceptions for things like that.
“I have to finish. I can feel it. The way out of here is to face my biggest fear.”
Of course. “Which is…?”
A hesitation. Only a blink, but I knew her well enough to see it. “Spiders.”
She was lying. To herself as well, or only to me? I didn’t know the real answer, but that wasn’t it.
Regardless, she was probably right. I hated the words forming in my mind. “Let’s go find Zeke.”