Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Bjorn
Bjorn learned many things while he was in the red haze of battle.
First, the guards here in the labyrinth had never been prepared to handle an uprising.
All of their training had been to prevent anything like this from ever happening.
They didn’t know what to do when a full grown troll, hardened by years of battle, came barreling at them down a hall that was entirely too small for them to do anything but hold their ground.
Second, he knew without a doubt that revealing this place to the people of this kingdom was not going to be enough. The problem was deep within the core of the human kingdom.
The men who worked here were regular people.
They were guards, yes. They were trained to fight, and the average human was likely better suited to a garden than they were to a battlefield.
But these men weren’t noblemen making a profit off the sale of other people’s bodies.
They weren’t even making much money at all.
He had to assume they weren’t, considering how quickly they tried to run.
None of them had stood to fight against him with any sort of bravery.
They all ran for their lives, begging him to spare them when he had absolutely no intent to do so—not when they’d stood by and allowed the atrocities in here to happen for years.
But as he cleaved through them, slicing through their soft flesh, that led him to the realization that the problem was so much higher up than these men.
Showing the dark underbelly to the average person in this kingdom would only make them hate living here, but where would they go?
The poor could not escape this place any more than he could.
The nobility were the problem, those men and women who had gorged themselves on food and drink while others starved right next to them.
Those were the people he needed to target.
They were the ones who funded the labyrinth, and who likely sent people into it as well.
He needed them to suffer, but those were not the people he fought. They weren’t anywhere near this place.
Bjorn imagined them dotted all across the kingdom, each of them in more and more elaborate homes, beautiful and guarded. It would be hard to kill them. Harder to change their minds about this place. They made money here. They enjoyed being here, and that meant...
Fuck, that meant this might all be for very little. He might only be able to free those who were here already, but no vengeance would be served.
It made him fight even harder. It made the deaths he dealt even bloodier and more cruel. He couldn’t tear at the people he wanted to tear at, nor could he make an impact with this fight.
He would return to his king, beaten again.
“Bjorn!” The voice shouted through the red haze of his mind, but it was hard to focus on that when all he could see was blood. He wanted to listen, though. He needed to. This was no place to not hear those who were trying to help him.
He could hurt another troll. Just like his father had.
“Bjorn!”
But he couldn’t hear that person now. He was stuck in the old memory, the one where his father was killing all who made noise and Bjorn just had to stay quiet. Or he had to fight back.
Suddenly, in his mind he was larger. The size he was now.
Facing his father as he had only done a few times in his life before the old man had died a glorious death.
But now they were both berserkers, both of them lost to the rage that controlled all of their bloodline.
He had feared what would happen if he had challenged his father like this, when the old man had been alive.
He’d never even thought to challenge him because what would have happened? Would they both have died?
“Bull!” the shout sliced through the thoughts and pulled him back into the present.
He blinked, and suddenly the world was in front of him again.
He could see all the bodies that littered the ground, all the guards who had lost their lives trying desperately to fight him off.
And as he stood there, he also noticed that Rabbit was way at the end of the hall, staring at him from around a corner.
Bjorn snorted, trying to clear the scent of death from his lungs.
“You with us again?” Rabbit asked.
“You have too much experience getting me out of that,” he muttered.
“I’m aware. We’ve got a problem.”
“Which is?”
“The king himself,” Rabbit growled. “He’s here, and he’s got your woman.”
Bjorn’s entire body went cold. What did he mean the king had Astrid? No, she was supposed to be tucked away somewhere safe by now. Clearly, she had some reason to come into the labyrinth itself, but she should have left by now. Shouldn’t she?
Breathing hard, he stalked toward Rabbit and headed down the hall his friend was in. “Where is she?”
“At the front entrance with the rest of the women. The king isn’t letting any of them leave.”
“She tried to go out the front?” he swore. “Why would she do that?”
“Probably because she got it in her head to save all the other women who were trapped in here. Brave but not entirely smart.” Rabbit shook his head, darting ahead of him and leading the way.
His friend had always had a better hold over the patterns of this labyrinth.
Sometimes he’d thought if Rabbit could have just gotten out of his cell, then he would have been able to go anywhere.
He should apologize for leaving without Rabbit. His old friend didn’t deserve to be left behind. None of them did. They were all good men and women who had been trapped here for horrible reasons, and he should have released them all when he’d been freed.
He should have fought to come back here, but Bjorn had been such a coward it had been hard to return. He hadn’t wanted to come back to the labyrinth, even though he’d known they all needed him.
“Rabbit,” he said as they stalked through the halls. “I should have taken you with me.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“No, but I still should have tried.”
“You couldn’t have. If you had taken me with you, then you would have been caught. Then we all would have been stuck here forever, or one of us would have died by now. You did what you had to do.” He peered around a corridor and then headed down it. “Focus on what you’re going to do to save her.”
“Rabbit. Can you stop for a second?”
“We don’t have time for this!” Rabbit’s shout echoed through the halls, startling Bjorn into silence as the yellow troll went on a rant.
“You started all of this, Bjorn. You helped the others escape. You got out yourself. No one is mad at you for doing so. It’s a good thing you were able to get out of here and a very good thing that you came back.
There is nothing you need to apologize for.
We all know where we are, what happened, and how hard it is to get out.
So just be thankful you were one of the few who managed. ”
They were still charging through the halls, with nothing to bother them other than the trail of blood that made the stone floor slick. “I didn’t want to come back. Not for you. Not for anyone. I feel guilty about that, my old friend.”
“None of us would have blamed you for leaving us here. You got out, and your life started again. That’s the best thing that could have happened.
If you hadn’t come back at all, I would have gone on assuming that you just..
. lived, Bjorn. That’s all any of us want.
Just to live and allow ourselves to live while forgetting this whole place ever existed.
” Rabbit kicked a wall as they headed out and then paused.
“We’re getting close. What’s your plan?”
“Kill them all.” He stalked forward, ready to do exactly that until Rabbit’s hand landed flat on his chest. He froze, looking down at his much smaller friend. “What?”
“You can’t go into it like that. The king brought his best, and you are not up to the same standard. Bull, you have fought a lot of different people and creatures, but you haven’t fought the king’s best with far more of them at his beck and call than we have.”
“What would you suggest then? Try to bargain with the man who trapped us all?”
“No, of course not. I would suggest that you think about this plan before you hurt yourself.”
There was nothing to think about. He could barge into all of them. It didn’t matter if they injured him or hurt him. He would fight as no one else had ever fought before because Astrid was there.
If he heard her scream, heard her call out to him for even a moment, it would all be over. Bjorn wouldn’t be able to control himself, not in the slightest.
“Rabbit,” he snarled. “You only have a few seconds to convince me of another plan.”
“She’s your troll wife, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Then use her magic.”
He couldn’t use her magic. They amplified each other’s magic. That was all. “She has the amplification. All I could ever do was talk to animals, Rabbit. That’s it. I’m not good with magic anyway. It all gets jumbled up in my head.”
“If she can do it, so can you, old friend. What I need you to do is use whatever that is.” Rabbit pointed across the hall to another that split off from the main area. He could see there were other trolls there.
A lot of them.
Trolls who had fought beside him long ago, but who were now used to fighting together.
They were willing to battle beside him, knowing that he would take the brunt of the pain and injuries for them.
Ragnar was there as well, his lavender features hard to miss among the others. All Bjorn had to do was... was...
He could feel her, he realized. The brightness of her magic stretched into his until he could almost feel the glow in his palms. She wanted him to use that power. She wanted him to spread it, coil it around the trolls...
Oh, he realized what the plan was.
“I’m going to pull out their fylgja,” he murmured. “They’ll fight with us, not just against the person who had ignored it.”
“You’re what?”
He grinned at Rabbit. “There are many benefits to having a troll wife, my friend. Someday you will see.”
Rabbit made a face. “Do not curse me with a woman, Bull. I have no interest in one.”
Of course he didn’t. But Bjorn was quite certain that, whether troll wife or husband, the magic was still spread to each.
Regardless, he was quite certain he could convince the spirits to fight with them.
Sure, he’d only seen her summon them to battle against their own person, but.
.. surely they would fight together as well. It had to be possible.
So he wove the magic, pulling it from the first few trolls across the way.
It took some doing. After all, the spirits were only there to guide the troll they were connected to.
But he could speak with them, unlike Astrid.
He could tell them why it was so important that they fight alongside the person they guided and protected.
This was about protection, after all. It was about keeping all of them safe.
More and more he pulled. Wolves and beasts from the woods. Giant spiders, elk, monstrous crocodiles, over and over again. Until finally he turned to his dear friend and reached for the creature within him.
Rabbit sighed, reached down, and lifted his spirit animal up by its very long ears. “Really, Bjorn?”
He shrugged. “I don’t make them, you know. I just pull out what is already there.”
“A rabbit? What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Tell it to bite?”
Rabbit held it out to him and said, “Bite.”
The little creature was highly uninterested in that option. It just hung there, dangling from its ears and twitching its tiny little nose. Probably not a very good guardian spirit but one that fit his friend.
“Stay behind us all,” he said, trying very hard not to chuckle. “The last few of them will be terrified of your beast. I am certain of it.”
“I will kick you the first chance I get.”
“If I’m still alive, yes. You may.”
Then, Bjorn walked into the hall. Just himself, subtly motioning for everyone else to stay where they were. He didn’t want the king to know that there were more of them. At least, not yet.
He stared down the hall to see the room where it opened up. There were plenty of guards, at least twenty men pointing crossbows at him and even more ready with swords and blades.
“You brought a lot of soldiers to fight me,” he said, meandering ever forward.
He couldn’t see the king or Astrid yet, but he was glad for it. It was already hard to keep ahold of himself. Seeing her, and the fear he knew he’d recognize in her eyes, would make him lose his mind.
But then he saw the king. He was hidden among all the gleaming armor and all the nonsense that he’d brought with him. Did they really believe flimsy metal armor would keep Bjorn away from their vital organs?
The king stared him down. “You were a dog ready to take any order I gave you. I told you to bark, and what did you do? You barked.”
“I did what I had to do to stay alive,” Bjorn replied. “And now, I am back for revenge. Where is my woman?”
“Your woman?”
“My wife,” Bjorn snarled.
The crowd of soldiers parted to show her, with a sword at her throat and her posture straight as an arrow. She stood there, unafraid of anyone who touched her, because she was looking at him.
“You have one chance to let her go,” Bjorn said. “One.”
“Slit her throat,” the king said, his tone bored. “Then kill them all, even the ones hiding in the next passage. Will you?”
Bjorn’s entire world slowed down to the motion of the sword that was already drawing across her throat as the familiar red haze tore through his eyesight.
He heard the shouts of his own men, the trolls behind him who raged at the thought that one of their own would be injured.
He heard Rabbit shouting at him, but he didn’t understand the words.
They’d touched her. Now they would all pay.