Chapter 35 – Vale
VALE
“Coinmaster!” I barked. “How do they know there’s trouble?”
The leprechaun looked up at me blandly, still under Bac’s enchantment.
“The king insisted that an alarm was to sound if anyone left the vault and one of you stepped over the threshold, triggering the alarm. He seemed to think that someone might get in another way, but if they got out, then they’d be a threat.
” He looked at Neve. “Seems she might be one to him, no?”
Fates. We are in trouble.
“Daggers out,” Caelo said. “We know there are ogres, and they look hungry. I can’t say what other monsters lie ahead but be prepared to fight all the way to the main level.”
“Since we’re no longer getting out of here quietly, we might need more than just daggers and throwing stars.” Neve darted over to the line of three swords. They were ancient and more decorative than most swords I’d seen. Prizes, all of them. “Take these!”
She passed me a sword, then gave the other two to Caelo and Freyia.
Blades gleaming in the faelights, we took off, sprinting down the corridor.
Under one arm, Bac carried Balvor. We needed the leprechaun to pass through the steel door near the entrance, but his legs were too short to keep up.
Thankfully, the fae remained under Bac’s magical persuasion and did not fight.
We closed in on the draugr first, and he shifted to the side, bowing at Neve jerkily.
“My lady. Until we meet again.”
Neve should have kept running, should have ignored the undead creature. Instead, my mate skidded to a stop.
“Harvadril, you said you served me?”
“I serve the true Falk line, Princess Isolde. That is you and I, and no one else. Or if so, I have not met them.”
Neve nodded. “I ask you to join us. Fight with us all the way up the stairs.” She paused, her eyes lighting up as though she realized something. “Then, once you’re done, you can either return here or come with us.”
My brilliant mate!
The draugr gripped his rusted sword, thrilled by the idea of a fight. “I’ve been wanting to skewer those ogres for many turns.”
“Have at them,” Neve said and waved for the draugr to lead the way, which he did with apparent relish as we, once again, raced for the door.
I beamed at her. Draugrs were famous for their fighting skills, and they could not die. Putting this creature in the forefront was genius. Particularly as we weren’t sure what we’d meet on the steps.
As we approached the first of the caged ogres.
The skeletal being surged forward to meet those who wanted to drink our blood and eat our bones.
With grace that most living soldiers would envy, Harvadril cut down one ogre with ease, though as he did so, another ogre leapt on his back, sinking her teeth into the draugr’s bony shoulder.
Freyia caught up, sword in hand. With the speed of the vampire order, she grabbed the ogre by the head, pulled back, and cut across the neck. The second fell with a thud as four more shuffled out of their cages.
These new ogres drooled at the sight of the dead, and I got the sense they’d been waiting in the dark for death to come upon the others so that they could scavenge.
Time to put them out of their misery. I attacked one while Caelo brought his sword down on the other.
The ogres were slow moving in body and mind and despite their massive size, they were weak from starvation.
We flew high and targeted the veins in their necks to cut them down one by one.
By the time we finished, Harvadril and Freyia had dispatched the other two.
“How many more?” Neve asked. “And why aren’t they here?”
“Six,” Bac said. “The other cages are empty. They might have gone in the opposite direction. Are they instructed to go somewhere, Balvor? Maybe wait by that steel door?”
“They’re instructed to kill any thieves, leaving only leprechauns alive,” Balvor said, still seemingly unworried. Bac’s magic was keeping him so. “We all drink a potion that is poisonous to them, so they wouldn’t dare eat me. I fear that you all are in grave danger.”
As if we didn’t know that already.
“So, are there more? Near other vaults?” Neve asked.
“Yes.”
“They likely ran off because they were weaker than the ones here,” I said. “I expect that they’re elsewhere, fighting and eating their own kind.”
“How many others are there within the vault system?” Bac asked.
Balvor gave a shrug and hummed lightly. Bac’s powers of persuasion were far too strong.
“It matters not how many. We have no choice but to go forward,” Caelo muttered, as pissed about all this as I. “Weapons at the ready. Harvadril, at the front again.”
As we raced down the corridor, I half expected the other ogres to leap out of the offshoots and into our path.
They didn’t though, and I caught the sounds of fighting down a few smaller tunnels.
On the way here, I’d heard growls and whines.
It seemed I was most likely right about ogres moving to other halls to eat their own.
Whatever the starving, pitiful fae the leprechauns had imprisoned were doing, it was not searching for us. We reached the steel door without issue.
“Your hand to the door,” Bac instructed.
Balvor extended his hand, palm shaking. Was he fighting Bac’s powers? If so, he failed to free himself from them, for he pressed his hand to the door as Bac instructed and the door lifted. We ran through it and down the hallway.
“Nearly there!” Luccan cried out. “Be prepared for anything.”
I gripped the long sword in my hand, thankful that Neve’s family had placed them in the vault. For us, they might mean the difference between life and death.
We burst into the circular room, the mouth of the never-ending stairs. I took in the space but found no adversaries. A moment of peace that was shattered by the howls and guttural roars from the steps above.
“Freyia, can you take the back?” Neve asked. “More ogres, or maybe something worse could come, and you’ll hear them gaining before any of us. Plus, I trust you to catch anyone if they fall down the steps. Harvadril, you take point.”
“As you wish, Princess Isolde.”
“I’ll be right behind you, draugr,” Caelo said.
I stood by Neve. The steps were narrow, but there was no way I was letting her go ahead of me, nor behind, where I could not see her.
“Go,” Freyia assured. “The longer the alarm bells sound, the more guards they’ll have at the top of the steps too.”
We ran, lungs burning, legs straining from the effort. With each step upward, I kept Neve in my sights. We made it only thirty steps when my heart dropped to my knees.
Emerging from the unseen cages deep in the sides of the staircase were black direwolves. I counted six. Almost one for each of us. Too bad they weren’t the only foes we’d face.
A lindwyrm, technically a type of dragon native to this realm and not a worm at all, undulated down the stairs ahead of the wolves, having already spotted us.
The creature was fifty paces long and made of pure muscle, but that was not the worst of it.
Seemingly in control of the animals were two draugrs waiting among the wolves.
“Bleeding skies,” Luccan hissed. “If we live through this, it will be a miracle!”
“The lindwyrm has venom,” I shouted. “It will spit that venom, so steer clear of it.”
“How will we kill it if we have to stay away?” Neve held up a dagger. “These aren’t good for range fighting.”
“Harvadril,” I said, not wanting to risk someone with skin that the venom could burn off.
Not to mention, I had doubts that any of us could do what I was about to ask of the draugr. The lindwyrm was thick and while Luccan, Caelo, Freyia, and I were strong and experienced fighters, the draugr was more so.
“Harvadril, slice the lindwyrm in half. Then we fight our way up.” I rarely prayed to the dead gods, but I did so now, singling out Tyiel, God of Battle.
If no more ogres came and if the wolves and the enemy draugrs would just stay on the steps long enough for the lindwyrm to die, we might have a chance.
“Ogres incoming,” Freyia said, dashing my faint hopes as the ground trembled with their great weight. “I’d say six or seven, judging by the cadence of their footfalls.”
Of course they were. They were starving and had finished whatever mayhem they were causing in the other corridors. They’d caught on to our scent and hoped to feed more decadently.
“Harvadril, kill that wyrm!” Neve commanded, panic rising in her voice.
I grasped her forearm. She needed to keep her head. For that, I suspected Neve required a task, and I had just the one.
“Wife, shoot icicles at the wolves. Aim for their soft side.”
The cold in the underbelly of the coinary deepened as Neve called upon her magic for the first time in days. Since we’d traveled to Vitvik, we’d all saved up our powers, just in case disaster struck. The time to use them had come, and no one here possessed more power than my mate.
She released four spear-like icicles as long as Skelda.
Three hit their targets, one shattered on the steep steps behind an enemy draugr—female by the looks of her.
The corpse monster let out a roar, but as the lindwyrm was closing in on us, their faraway anger was the least of my worries.
My stomach danced as Harvadril climbed a dozen more steps and approached the long, thin dragon.
The lindwyrm unfurled and wasted no time in spitting venom. As Harvadril was skeletal, it went right through him and shot down the stairs. Caelo, Luccan, Neve and I ducked, but paces behind us, someone screamed.
“Tanziel!” Bac shouted.
I twisted to see that Bac had hurled Balvor from his grasp. He must have also released Balvor from his powers for when the leprechaun rose to stand, a stream of curses left his lips.
“How is she?” I called, lunging forward and stabbing a section of the lindwyrm that had slithered too close while Harvadril battled the beast face to face.
“It’s burning through her cheek!” Bac yelled back.