Read Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) Online
Authors: E. William Brown
“We do, don’t we?” Cerise agreed. “Alright, quick looting run. Be
back soon.”
Sure enough, we found that Avilla could handle a constant power feed
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just fine as long as I didn’t get carried away with it. We found a basin and
washed away the blood, and then she produced a needle and thread and sewed
my clothes back together so finely they looked like new when she was done.
It was odd watching her work. At first glance it looked like she wasn’t
even using magic, but somehow everything went far faster than normal. Rips
that should have taken an hour of painstaking work to repair were closed in
moments, and everything fit back together perfectly despite the fact that I knew
there should have been missing pieces.
But I didn’t have time to just sit and watch. I didn’t know when the
next time we’d have a moment of peace might be, so I took the time to lay a
warmth enchantment on Avilla’s dress. Cerise returned around then, and I
repeated the process on one of the cloaks she’d found while Avilla altered a
shirt and a pair of pants to fit her.
I noted that she somehow managed to make the stolen clothes fit
Cerise like a second skin, but I wasn’t complaining.
Aside from books there wasn’t much of interest in the temple. A few
coins on the bodies and in the priests’ rooms, and a small chest in what I
presumed was Holger’s office that held a few bags full of copper and silver
coins. It was small potatoes compared to what we’d taken from the Baron’s
keep, but we took it all regardless. No telling when we might find ourselves
needing it.
Then we set out into the snow.
The storm had blown over while we were otherwise occupied. A
steady sprinkle of snow was still falling, but the wind had died down
considerably and I could actually see the whole plaza in front of the church.
Unfortunately, that was partly because of the burning buildings.
Distant shouts and screams rose up all around us. Less than a block
away one of the streets was blocked by a knot of townsmen fighting a group of
goblins on wolf-back next to a pair of burning buildings. Further away I heard
the roar of a troll, and the sound of something being smashed.
“Damn. Cerise, are you up for a real fight?”
“My legs are a little wobbly,” she admitted. “But I can manage, as
long as it doesn’t last too long.”
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“Alright. I’ll take point. You watch my back, and keep Avilla safe.
But if we run into ungols I’ll probably need your help. The damned things are
so fast I have trouble landing a hit on them, but I think you can match them
now.”
“Ungols? Fuck. I’ll do what I can.”
The new goblin attack seemed to be centered on the breech in the
wall, but the river side of the town was far from untouched. We passed one
house after another with doors and windows smashed open, and bloodstains
scattered at random. The ungols had been busy.
How many people had died while I was under Cerise’s spell?
I shook my head. I couldn’t save them all regardless. There were too
many monsters, too much ground to cover, too many targets who couldn’t fight
back effectively if I was busy somewhere else. Maybe if I’d gotten here a few
days earlier, or if things had gone differently during the first goblin attack.
Or maybe not. I still didn’t know how the goblins had punched that
hole in the town wall. For all I knew the same method would have worked on
the new wall I’d been building. There were far too few people in Lanrest who
could fight at all, and none who could stand up to the real threats.
The sound of battle somewhere ahead of us drew my attention. We
were almost there, but someone was having a hell of a fight.
I turned a corner, and my fears were confirmed.
The granary was a cluster of two-story buildings surrounded by a low
wall, and someone had blocked the entrance with a pair of overturned wagons.
But there was a desperate battle taking place in the courtyard beyond. A few
dozen soldiers and armed townsmen, against at least two ungols.
I checked, and glanced at my companions. How to do this?
“Get me to the crowd,” Avilla suggested. “I can use them for cover,
and then you two can concentrate on the monsters.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “Full speed, then. Ready, Cerise?”
I scooped Avilla up in my arms. Cerise closed her eyes for a moment,
and then her horns were back. Her green eyes glowed faintly in the darkness.
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“Ready,” she agreed. “One more push.”
I charged.
With bursts of force magic turning each step into a giant leap I tore
down the street with the speed of a galloping horse. Cerise easily kept pace
beside me, her long legs matching me stride for stride. We crossed the length
of the dark street in moments, and leaped over the barricade into the chaos of
the torch-lit courtyard.
Two steps into the melee a blur of motion tried to pounce on Cerise.
She ducked, grabbed with her tail as her knives came out, and tumbled across
the cobblestones locked blade to claw with her attacker. They both moved
blindingly fast, and for a moment I couldn’t tell who was winning.
I set Avilla down amid a clump of startled townsmen, and activated
Grinder. The shriek of tortured plasma cut through the noise of battle like an
air raid siren, and the ungols reacted instantly.
The one fighting Cerise broke off and backed away, dripping blood
from half a dozen shallow wounds. A second one put its head down and
barreled through the crowd, sending grown men flying as it knocked them
aside. A third jumped down from the roof of a building, landing in the rapidly
clearing space around the first. All three watched me warily.
Cerise rejoined me. She had a huge bruise on her cheek and a bloody
nose, but otherwise seemed unhurt.
“Fuck, those things are tough,” she complained. “My athame’s can
barely scratch them.”
“Lord wizard!” Captain Rain exclaimed, hurrying through the crowd
to join me. “Thank the gods you came! How do we fight these things?”
“You don’t,” I told him. “Keep the men back. We’ll handle them.”
The middle ungol opened its mouth, letting its black tongue loll out.
“Wizard too slow,” it hissed mockingly. “Can’t catch. Watch food
die.”
There were at least a dozen bodies on the ground. My people, killed
by these… things.
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“Oh, you think so?” I growled. “We’ll see. Cerise?”
“Yeah, boss?”
I reached into the enchantment in my hand, and suppressed the
automatic shutoff. Then I handed her Grinder.
“Try this instead.”
Her eyes went wide. “Fuck yeah! Let’s see you assholes shrug off this
baby.”
She tossed one of her knives in the air, caught it with her prehensile
tail, and took the offered weapon. Then she turned to rush the ungols.
I followed her, and projected a roof of force above our heads.
Sure enough, the creatures tried to use their incredible agility to evade
her. They smacked into the force wall a heartbeat after it formed, sending them
tumbling back to the ground. They recovered in seconds, but by then she was
on top of them.
Grinder flashed and snarled, and a long tail went flying. The white
mist of their breath weapons enveloped her, and for an instant her own
shadowy aura stood out in stark relief as it shed their magic. A spray of
crimson blood showered across the snow, but a larger shower of black ichor
followed it.
I turned the wall into a dome, trapping us all together inside.
A flurry of impacts buffeted both the dome and my shield, but all
failed to penetrate. Huge jaws clamped shut around me, lifting me off my feet
like a dog preparing to shake a squirrel.
I rammed a force blade down the thing’s throat.
It dropped me and backed away, bleeding black ichor from the
wound. I tried making the ground under its feet grab it, but it ripped its way
free with overwhelming strength.
But that distracted it long enough for Cerise to come bouncing over it
and drag Grinder right through its body. It staggered, cut nearly in half, and I
turned my attention back to maintaining the dome.
From there it was over in seconds. When the last ungol fell Cerise
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loped its head off, took a few seconds to make sure of her kills, and then
limped back over to. Her left arm was a mangled ruin, half her tail was just
gone, and she was bleeding from more cuts than I wanted to think about. But
she was grinning like a lunatic.
God, she was beautiful.
“Three less demons in the world,” she reported happily. “Am I the
baddest bitch ever, or what?”
“You’re amazing, Cerise. Now let me heal that before you bleed out.”
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Epilogue
We left Lanrest the same way we arrived.
It took barely half an hour to put walls and a roof on the hover-barge,
and expand it a little to accommodate our larger party. After the ungol attack
there weren’t nearly as many of us, anyway. The demons had killed a lot of
men, and they’d taken a particular delight in carving a path through them to kill
any children they could find.
The river was frozen solid now, and our vessel glided silently over
the ice as we left the town behind. That was a good thing, because it meant the
giant shapes approaching the burning town hadn’t noticed us. I wouldn’t have
seen them either, if not for the light of burning buildings leaking out through the
breach in the wall.
There had been something else among the giants. A vast shape that
made them look like children, creeping across the fields on four legs with its
wings folded against is scaled back.
Somehow I wasn’t surprised to find that there were dragons in this
world.
The weather closed in again as we cruised downriver, the light snow
building rapidly into a howling blizzard again. Inconvenient as it was I was
glad for the cover. But the timing seemed odd. Had someone ringed the town in
storms to prevent anyone from escaping?
There was no way to be sure. But as I squinted into the icy blast, it
certainly seemed that there were faint glimmers of magic permeating the falling
snowflakes.
“What now, sir?” Captain Rain asked from beside me.
I glanced back at the huddled mass of refugees crowded into the barge
behind me, and considered.
“Let’s get another mile or two down the river, and I’ll stop for a bit. I
need to set things up so someone else can drive this thing, and come up with a
way to keep everyone warm. The walls and roof help, but with this wind it’s
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not enough.
“And after that?” Oskar asked. He and a plump woman I assumed was
his wife were huddled under a blanket near the front of the barge.
“That depends. Markus, can you think of anywhere in this kingdom
that could weather an attack by giants?”
He frowned. “Not Margold. Not if they’re serious about it. No one
builds walls that strong.”
“What about Kozalin?” Oskar asked. “They’ve got the Red Conclave
there, and the Griffon Knights, and three High Temples. It’s not walls we need
to look for, it’s men with the strength to hold them.”
“You may be right,” Marcus mused. “It’s a major city, and I’d lay
odds either the King or his heir will be there. The elves have an embassy there
too, if I remember right. But it’s a long trip.”
“We can cover a lot of ground if we need to,” I said. “The Baron had
gotten news from there. The Conclave is trying to do something about the
weather, and there are enough elite forces there that they’ve got the luxury of
trying to help other settlements. Do you know how to get there?”
Markus nodded, and patted the leather satchel at his hip. “I have
maps.”
“Good. Kozalin it is, then.”
I turned my attention back to the snow in front of me. Visibility was
poor, but the sun was finally rising. As long as I was careful, I could steer a
course through the storm.
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