Chapter 50
The others have noticed too. The crows are screeching at us, and since Kyor saved Ruben from the Rottings, not a single bolt of lightning has crashed down from the sky. Not a single ball of fire has been hurled at the monsters.
Their magic’s gone too.
Rohan told Caz that only thirty men from an entire battalion survived the Myrkr he faced. The thought swims around in my head over and over. We’ve faced the Myrkr once already, and there’s no way we can get that lucky again and walk out of here unscathed.
Little Raven, I did not find you just to lose you now. Fen’s voice comes through my mind, and with it a spark of confusion arises. Our magic is muted, yes, but the bond between Fen and me somehow remains.
Which can only mean that the Myrkr is not all-powerful.
‘Rose, behind you!’ Caz yells out.
Levelling my sword I swing around with reckless abandon, and a sickening crunch meets my ears as the metal separates the vertebrae of a Rotting.
But there’s no time for elation. A low hiss whistles through the air, and beneath my feet the ground withers.
The Myrkr’s magic takes life as surely as my green magic gifts it.
Fen’s fear rumbles through me, but that’s a good thing, I tell myself.
We can feel each other, I say to him. Focus on that. There’s magic here. He’s not taking it all. He’s not unbeatable.
Maybe there’s also other magic he hasn’t taken. Something else I can call upon. With a flurry of hope, I will the ice to my fingertip, yet nothing but the biting cold meets my skin.
‘Come on!’ I scream in frustration at the Gods. ‘You want me angry to use my ice? I’m angry!’
It’s true. I’m fucking furious.
I get one lousy day with my bonded wolf? And just a couple of days with my brother? And now my life is to end with me bitten and clawed at by Rottings all because of some mythical nightmare that decided it’s going to stalk us through the woods?
Fuck that.
There’s a way out of this, a way we all survive. I know there is.
And yet the answer still evades me, as does my bloody ice magic.
Stoked by my fury, I scan around me, continuing to swing my sword through encroaching Rottings. As my blade cuts through the hinge of a jaw, my eyes fall on the Sannings. They are fighting with all their might, lunging at the Rottings and tearing their limbs from them with hand and spear.
But they are the ones lunging, I realise. Not the other way around. Whether it is the lack of magic, or their fox garbs, or something else … the Rottings are not attacking the Sannings at all.
And maybe if I can find the reason for that, I can stop them coming for us, too.
The thought has barely formed when a high-pitched howl screeches into the air.
Fen.
My whole body seethes with pain as I turn to see the dire wolf hurling backward. The Myrkr’s steed’s back legs fall to the ground as if it has just finished a buck.
‘Hey! Not my fucking dire wolf!’ I yell as the horse’s glowing red eyes land on me.
I charge towards it, fury whipping me at the feeling of Fen’s pain, the action happening on instinct, long before conscious thought can catch up.
My eyes lock on the flaring nostrils of the hell beast, and I hold my sword with both hands as I thrust it towards the animal’s chest.
The weapon slides in, and smoke bubbles out.
Any doubt I had that it was not a normal horse evaporates as a freakish wail rips through the air.
Low and piercing, it blows the hair from my face as the horse-like thing’s knees buckle, but my mind has already moved past the injured steed and is now focused solely on the rider.
The sight of the Myrkr is enough to make my entire body want to recoil. Half shadow, its edges blur as if reality can’t quite agree on its shape, while beneath his hood is nothing but darkness. An abyss. An abomination. Death made corporeal.
Yet where Fen’s fear should threaten to overwhelm me, it does the opposite. It steadies. Reminds me of what I already know: it cannot control all magic.
It can be defeated. And I’m happy to volunteer.
‘Don’t let them scratch you!’ Kyor urgently reminds us as the Rottings continue their gnashing and clawing. As he sends another head flying, I’m barely listening. Even as a Rotting snatches at the air a hair’s breadth from my cheek, I slice through its arm with detachment.
‘They don’t care how many limbs we chop off,’ I say. ‘They’re not stopping. They won’t stop.’
‘Then we keep going until they are all dead,’ Stide replies as she lunges towards me, spear pointed towards a Rotting that has its eyes locked on me.
Only as her blade pierces its skin does it swivel round and claw at her.
My breath hitches, but there’s no need. Before I even lift my blade, its head rolls to the ground.
‘Thanks,’ I mutter to Stide.
‘You’re welcome, The Rose. I like you better breathing.’
I grin. ‘Back at you.’
The severed head on the ground snaps its teeth at my boot.
I nudge it aside with my foot. ‘Still grumpy.’
‘You would be too if someone ruined your day like that,’ Stide says, already turning to the next Rotting, her spear flashing with confidence.
I cut down another Rotting, and my line of sight is once again cleared back through to the Myrkr, who now stands with his feet on the earth.
His beast is next to it, already recovering from a wound that should have been fatal.
They’re both watching us now.
Not attacking. Not intervening. Calmly observing. As though whether we live or die is of no consequence.
Rage flares hot and sudden, burning through the fear.
‘Fuck you,’ I scream at it. ‘You don’t get to stand there in judgement. The Goddess herself found me worthy.’
I raise my sword, only for a Rotting to step between the Myrkr and me.
The blade jams through its back and between its ribs, yet as I go to pull it back out, it snags on something.
Fabric, tendon, who knows, but at the angle I stand, pulling it out is only going to pull the Rotting closer towards me.
So I don’t. Instead, I kick it, pushing the Rotting away and freeing my sword.
That’s the plan anyway, but my hands are slick from sweat and putrid Rotting, and the hilt releases from my grip and flies forward with the creature.
For a split second, I consider going after it.
Pulling it out of the mottled flesh in which it is now sheathed, but I stop, my eye drawn back to the Myrkr as my hand slips to my side, and the dagger held there.
It’s the dagger Dinah gave me, and twin to the blade that High Priestess Mila used to judge us at the start of the Retterheld to assess if we were worthy; those who weren’t were left to bleed out on the floor of the Sunken Temple.
So what are the chances that the Gods are going to find this death-wielding cloaked fucker worthy?
As I clench the hilt in my fist, the Myrkr turns its head towards me, slow and deliberate. There are still metres between us, but its gaze does something that makes me feel as though I’m the plants withering beneath its feet.
That’s what it’s trying to do to me. Make me wilt.
Well, fuck that.
I pull the blade clean from the sheath, only for a scream-inducing pressure to strike my skull.
It’s attacking me somehow, trying to defeat me without even fighting.
Fucking coward! That’s what it is. A fucking coward. Letting the Rottings do its work. Stealing our magic to stop a fair fight. It’s a fucking bully, and I’ve put down more than one of those in my life.
‘I’m the fucking gifted!’ I scream the words, but they’re as much for myself as for the Myrkr.
I need the reminder that the Goddess picked me once. Actually, more than once. And I don’t think she did that just so I could die out here in the dark.
A hiss rattles from beneath the hood as it takes a single step towards me. The pressure behind my skull increases to a crushing weight that makes my vision blur. But I have experienced hunger, starvation, cold, and deprivation.
I have survived them all.
And I will survive this.
Gasping against the pain, I squeeze my eyes shut.
Kyor. Kay. William. Fen. The baby. I say the words in my head. I will not be taken from them. Not now. Not like this. Kyor. Kay. William. Fen. The baby.
As the world narrows to breath and motion, the Myrkr takes another step, only this one is closer to a leap.
It lashes out, not with a blade, but with a fist that catches my cheekbone and sends me sprawling. Pain blooms across my face, sharp and distracting, but I roll and come up fast, dagger clenched tight.
Still no magic.
Just me.
I have been without magic before, and I was enough then.
I am enough still.
He gleams with something. Anticipation. He wants a fight, and a fight is what he’s going to get. A harsh metallic screech tears into me as he withdraws his sword from its scabbard.
So it won’t be a fistfight after all.
Dagger versus sword is never a good move, but somehow it feels right.
I don’t second-guess myself. Instead, I shift my weight just like Zelle taught me, and I launch myself at the monster.
‘Rose!’ Kyor’s cry is strangled and full of panic. Before I can tell him not to, he is racing towards my side.
‘I need to strike it with the dagger!’ I yell at him. ‘The judgement, like the trials!’
If Kyor thinks the idea is insanity, he doesn’t say as much. Instead, he simply moves closer, trying to attract the Myrkr’s attention to give me an opening.
But it doesn’t work and its blade flashes towards me.
Kyor is there to block it before I can begin to move.
The block doesn’t come without a cost though, and Kyor cries out as his tortured shoulder screams in pain, but he holds his blade steady.
The grating screech of metal against metal sets my teeth on edge, but I don’t have time to be precious.
The way Kyor keeps the Myrkr’s sword locked has given me the perfect opening and I don’t plan on wasting it.
‘Let the Gods judge you, arsehole!’