4. Rorax
“You know, Rorax, if you did show up for the Choosing, I could come back with you to defend my title in the Tournament of Houses. I’ve been thinking about someone else taking my crown and it has me breaking out into hives,” Volla muttered.
Rorax laughed. “I think it will be a good thing to humble you.”
“This country is a gods damned shit hole,” Volla griped as she pushed her way through a tall bush, breaking through the leaves and branches like a bull in a porcelain shop.
“I would rather babysit Angelo’s twin goblins for a month than hang out here for fun,” Rorax moaned as they continued to trudge, bushwhacking through the woods.
The Heilstorm’s first unit was a lot of things.
Sahana Thorash, their leader, was legendary. She was bursting with Dark Magick and even had a select few Life Magick abilities—like minimal healing and being able to track energy signatures. She was the founder of the Heilstorms and one of the deadliest warriors in the whole House of Ice’s army. Her mate and husband, Karan Thorash had been one of the most notorious pirates in all Illus before he settled down with Sahana in Koppar.
Volla Torvik, aka the Torch, arguably held the most Fire Magick in the Realms. She was like a bomb and was famous in warrior circles for her three consecutive victories in the Tournament of Houses.
Jia Frostguard, the newest recruit to Unit One, held a decent amount of Ice Magick, could shoot the wings off a fly with her bow, and could rob a thief lord blind.
Rorax had no elemental magick like most of the Gifted in the Realms.What made Rorax so deadly was Glimr. A knife that was propelled and fueled by a different kind of magick; Rorax could control Glimr with her mind. Rorax could sever a man’s spinal column a half mile away using Glimr. She’d left a trail of so many bodies, decapitated so many adversaries, that papers like Valitlinn Press, and singers across Illus had dubbed her with the nickname, the Spine Cleaver.
They were considered the best Heilstorm unit the House of Ice had ever seen. The most deadly, tactile, fluid team they’d had in years. So yes, they were a lot of things; each was deadly and perfect at the job they had been given.
What they did not do well, however, was suffer in silence, especially when they thought their complaining was hilarious.
“I swear to K??n, if I step in deer dung, I’m letting Volla burn the whole country down,” Jia groaned, tiptoeing around a particularly large pile of round, juicy deer droppings.
There wasn’t a direct road to the village where they were meeting their Lyondrean informant, so they were left to bushwhack through the countryside.
They’d left Sahloo four days ago and would hopefully be at the village by midday.
The House of Weather border patrol had split open the famous lightning wall that crackled endlessly over their Lyondrea border for them, promising not to shock them, and then the last few days their unit had hiked on foot through the Blackwood at the base of the New Volcano. Blackwood forest used to be part of the Lynxwood but had been appropriately renamed after the New Volcano eruption from a time long before Rorax had been born. It had left this part of Lynxwood blackened and burnt. The woods had never returned to their previous state of lush vegetation, and the locals’ nickname of the Blackwood became its official title.
After two days of marching through nothing but ash, blackened tree husks, and black dirt around the base of the New Volcano, they finally crossed from the Blackwood and back into the part of the Lynxwood forest that hadn’t been burned in the eruption. The air in the Blackwood had been dry, and a little smokey, but as they moved north into the Lynxwood toward the Mountain of the Red Queen, the air seemed to shift. The mist started gathering between the trees, a thick fog hovering in the air between the tall, white-barked aspen trees that littered the land here.
For hours and hours, they hiked through endless miles of mist and aspen. Each night Volla used her famous Fire Magick to cook their food, but they hadn’t kept a fire going throughout the night to avoid any unwanted attention, so the mist had started to permeate through Rorax’s very bones.
Sahana’s mother was from the House of Life and had passed Sahana the ability to sense any forms of life around them. She kept a low-grade flow of magick going nearly all the time, keeping an eye out for any approaching soldiers, wolves, or the bloodthirsty lynxes that gave the Lynxwood its name.
The traveling hadn’t been all that tough, but Rorax still groaned as she pushed a tree branch out of her face. Cold dew that had accumulated on the round aspen leaves fell on her scalp and down the back of her shirt, and she winced. As if feeling endlessly wet and soggy from all the mist wasn”t enough.
“We’re close now to the village where we’re meeting our informant. Only a few more miles northwest,” Sahana told them, looking down at the compass and up at the looming Mountain of the Red Queen.
“Thank the gods,” Volla groaned.
“Lyondrea should invest some money into some God’s damned infrastructure,” Rorax grumbled.
“Roads never hurt anyone,” Volla agreed.
“It just feels so . . . wrong here.” Sahana looked around, putting her compass away to rub her hands up and down her arms. The fog had started to thicken around them, creeping up closer and making it hard to see through the trees.
“Is it always so ominous in these woods?” Jia asked.
“I would go to war too if I was stuck living with this fog.” Volla pulled back a branch, letting them all pass in front of her, as they stepped from a thick line of aspens into a small clearing.
It wasn’t even thirty feet across, but they only made it halfway through the small treeless meadow when Sahana raised a fist. “Hold.”
The unit froze in their tracks.
Sahana’s dark eyes scanned in front of them, seeing something through the trees—probably energy signatures—that Rorax could not see.
Sahana widened her stance and pulled her katana out of its sheath. “Draw your weapons.”
Rorax unsheathed her sword and rolled onto her toes, ready to move as her eyes stayed pinned on the curling mist in front of her.
Jia drew her bow behind her, the sound of the tightening string letting Rorax know she had an arrow notched and ready.
“Three souls, moving this way quickly. Non-human. Unfamiliar. Large,” Sahana murmured.
Volla stepped into Rorax’s periphery, her longsword gripped tightly in her hands, a wreath of fire snaking around the intricate blade from hilt to tip.
There was a howl, and a huge body emerged from the mist, parting the fog as the dark beast lunged at them.
It was closest to Rorax and she just barely rolled away as the creature snapped with long fangs at the air where her head had just been.
A wolf.
Or something wolf-like. It was bigger than any of the common wolves they had back home. It was almost the same size as a gods-damned bear.
Jia released an arrow, and the arrow flew over Rorax’s head and thudded hard against the wolf’s fur, before falling uselessly to the ground.
The impact barely caused the wolf to stumble before he was back on his haunches leaping at his next nearest target, Sahana.
Twigs snapped behind Rorax again, and she turned in time to see two more forms burst through the mist, one coming straight for her.
Rorax sprinted towards them.
“Boost!” she shouted to Jia. A narrow pillar of ice formed from the ground, pushing up towards the sky under Rorax, rocketing her into the air. She flew over the wolves racing towards her, throwing Glimr down at one of them before landing on their opposite side, rolling into a crouch.
Rorax’s knife had knocked the wolf she hit to the ground.
The other wolf lunged at Volla, who stood ready for it, her sword raised and still wrapped in fire.
The wolf Rorax had thrown her knife at was on its side in the dirt, squirming and snarling, pinned under the weight Rorax applied with her knife.
Jia had run to the side of the wolf at the same time Rorax had, her bow strapped to her back in favor of two short swords made of sharp ice.
Rorax scanned the trees and the mist around her for any more threats before focusing down on the wolf.
The point of her short, intricately forged knife was pressed tip first against the animal beneath it, but there wasn’t enough force to penetrate the wolf’s flesh. The wolf struggled under the weight, flailing its limbs, and snapping its jaws while Rorax kept it pinned down.
Jia looked over at her, confused. “What are you waiting for, Rorax? Kill it.”
Rorax’s brow furrowed together. She was already applying enough pressure to kill ten grown men standing back-to-back. Clearly this was no ordinary wolf, otherwise, its body would have succumbed by now. She increased the pressure, enough to kill nearly thirty men . . . then pushed it to forty men before the pain at the back of her head told her she was close to maxing out.
She couldn”t do it. She focused, gritting her teeth, and pressing down until her head felt like it might split.
What in the hell was going on?
The wolf’s ribs cracked under the pressure, and it yelled in pain as it reared up, trying to swivel its head to bite at Ror and Jia furiously. When it snapped its jaws up at her, Rorax got an idea.
“Ice its head down.”
Without hesitation Jia did as she was told. With a fast wave of her fingers Rorax snapped the knife from pressing the wolf into the ground and instead sent it rocketing through the wolf’s mouth.
The knife exploded out of the back of the wolf”s skull with so much force, blood and brain splattered against Jia and Ror’s faces, but at last the wolf went still.
“Hey, quit dicking around over there!” Volla yelled, snapping Ror and Jia’s attention around to see Volla battling her own wolf, sending blasts and whips of fire at the beast. The flames licked uselessly over the wolf’s fur, not finding purchase or anything to burn within the hair. “What the fuck is going on!”
Sahana had her wolf temporarily subdued—a thick wrapping of dark shadow covering the wolf’s eyes, ears, and nose.
“Go for the insides!” Rorax ran towards Sahana. “Open its mouth!”
Sahana’s shadows reached inside the wolf’s jaw and pried it open, wide enough for Rorax to send her knife whizzing over to Sahana’s wolf. With a jerk of Rorax’s wrist, the knife ripped through the second wolf’s skull.
They turned to move towards Volla’s wolf, who was nipping at Volla’s heels, completely ignoring her fire.
The wolf lunged for Volla’s neck, and in a flash of violet Jia threw herself at the beast, and they rolled over the grass.
The wolf ended up on top, pinning Jia to the ground and snapping its jaws down at her. It was about to wrap its teeth around Jia’s throat when Rorax came up from behind, wrapped her left arm around its neck and jerked its head up. With her right arm she shoved her knife down into the wolf”s gullet just as the wolf bit down into Rorax’s arm.
The animal’s now lifeless body went limp in her arms, but the wolf’s long canines were already deeply embedded into the flesh of her forearm.
“Fuck!” Rorax gritted her teeth as a sharp pain radiated up from her wound.
“Gods above.” Breathing hard, Jia looked up at Rorax from under the wolf’s carcass. “Thanks.”
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” Volla slid in next to them on her knees, her hands fluttering around Jia’s face. “Jia, answer me right now, are you—”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jia swatted Volla’s hands away. “Just get this thing out of Rorax’s arm and then get it off me. It’s dripping blood on me. Disgusting.”
With a grunt of pain, Rorax pulled her arm down and off the wolf’s long canines and staggered back as Volla heaved the body off Jia.
Sahana snatched Rorax’s bloody arm and pressed her hand over the wound.
Rorax hissed in pain, but instantly the flesh around the wound started to close.
“Good work, Ror,” Sahana murmured, her eyes on the wound. “Jia might have been dog chow if you hadn’t made it to her.”
“That’s not funny!” Volla called from over her shoulder, hauling Jia to her feet and wrapping her in a big hug. “That was way too close.”
“I’m fine.” Jia unwrapped herself from Volla”s embrace and moved over to nudge the wolf with her toe. “Are wolves . . . evolving or something? Since when are they immune to magick?”
“No, this must be what they sent the test vials with us for—what Kiniera meant by sour magick.”
“Maybe the Lyondrean Queen isn’t summoning from the Pits. Maybe it’s just this.”
Volla snorted, looking down at the wolf with her new wife. “Or maybe Lyondrea is just cursed, and we should go home.”
Sahana’s sweat dripped down her nose as the wounds on Rorax’s arm slowly closed over with pink, angry skin. Rorax gently extracted her arm out of Sahana’s grip. “That’s enough for now, Sahana. We can heal the bruise and the flesh underneath later.”
Sahana held an immense amount of Dark Magick, but only bits of Life Magick. Her healing was for small emergencies only.
Sahana released her, stepping back and wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. “Okay, yeah. Let me recharge for a bit.”
Rorax nodded and stepped over to the wolf carcass where her friends were already investigating.
Rorax crouched down on her haunches next to the dead wolf, reaching out to feel the thick fur with her fingers. “It just feels like . . . fur. But Volla couldn’t set it on fire, and I couldn’t cut into it.”
Jia reached down and rubbed her fingers through it, too. “It feels just like my dogs at home. Nothing special.”
“I wonder if they hunt this close to the billiards on purpose. Looking for people?” Volla mused.
A far away howl sounded and all four of their heads snapped up, instantly on high alert as other wolves in the area joined in.
“Let’s get out of this gods’ cursed forest,” Volla growled from under her breath. “I don’t know if we would survive another wolf, let alone the pack.”
Rorax couldn”t help but agree with the tall blonde, her instincts telling her to run.
“Jia, take samples. Blood and fur should do,” Sahana ordered.
When Jia was done, Sahana handed Volla a compass. “You lead us out. I’ll watch out for more energy signatures.”