Chaos God 5, page 20
part #5 of Chaos God Series
“I certainly hope so,” Lyrie said in a dry voice from a bit further back. “Crashing down into the chasm does not sound like a pleasant time.”
“It felt stable enough when I came through here before,” I said over my shoulder. “But if anybody feels the ground starting to shift or give way underfoot, remember, that’s not the kind of thing to keep to yourself.”
We slowed down just a bit and carefully sidestepped around the cracks and crevices as we moved forward to the edge of the chasm. Finally, we stood at the cliffside and looked down into the icy darkness of what I was sure was Niflheim.
“It looks just like the chasm north of Freesia’s village,” Elora muttered with a streak of tension in her voice, and her metallic wings bristled like the hackles on a cat.
“Yeah, it’s pretty similar.” I nodded, and then I pointed out the ramps and ridges that led down into the chasm. “Except there’s a way to get down there without having to fly.”
“Convenient,” Lyrie said dryly, and she smirked. “Seeing as we cannot all fly.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed you to come all this way if there wasn’t a way to get inside.” I smirked back at the white-haired elf. “But we do have to move further west to get to the closest one.”
“I see it over there,” Ayen commented, and he raised a hand to point at the exact ramp-like structure I’d meant.
“Yes, that one,” I agreed, and I turned back to address our small army. “The ground is going to be slippery, it’s covered in ice. Keep watch for Draugar. I want all of you to focus your efforts on those undead bastards. I’ll work on the frost giants.”
“You cannot expect us to ignore the frost giants,” Lyrie argued, and she propped one hand on her hip with defiance.
“Well.” I couldn’t help but smirk at her boldness. “I guess you know your skills and what your magic can do better than I do. So if you think you can take down a frost giant, then go for it.”
“Mmm,” Lyrie hummed with satisfaction, and she looked at me with a smug grin.
“However,” I said, and I looked at each of my warriors. “My people, none of you have magic, so keep to the Draugar, yeah? I don’t need any frozen Ayen or Sontar statues, alright?”
“Aye, my king,” Sontar said with humor in his voice.
I took a moment to peer down into the chasm, and I was both pleased and worried to find only a few Draugar milling about at the bottom. There wasn’t a single frost giant in sight this time, and the vast numbers of the undead creatures I’d seen yesterday seemed to be hiding elsewhere, too.
“Is something wrong, Levi?” Elora asked as she leaned beside me to have a look down. “What do you see?”
“There were a lot more Draugar here yesterday,” I muttered under my breath. “And I don’t see a single frost giant now.”
“I feel as though that should be a good thing,” Elora mumbled, but her amber-red eyes grew tense. “But it does not seem like a good thing.”
“I don’t like it,” I agreed. “And I don’t think they’d stay hidden for very long.”
I looked at Elora and found her face was a mask of false confidence, and I knew she was more scared than she was letting on.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep everyone safe.”
“I know…” Elora breathed, and she gripped her spear in both hands until her knuckles turned white.
“But…” I wrapped my hand around her wrist to make sure she was really paying attention. “If anything goes wrong, get out of there.”
“But what about–” Elora started to ask.
I squeezed her wrist a little to stop her words. “I don’t think it will come to that, but if it does…”
“I will not leave you, Levi,” Elora said in a voice as stubborn as Freesia.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” I sighed as my lips lifted up at the corners with admiration.
Elora was a Valkyrie, after all. She was a badass warrior who’d trained for battles like this for longer than I’d been alive.
“Alright,” I relented. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Elora smiled.
“If you two lovebirds are finished,” Ayen said loudly. “I believe we have some frosty-breathed assholes to kill.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled at my friend’s impatience. “Let’s go, everyone. Take your time and watch your steps.”
“I will take up the rear,” the scarred Valkyrie said as she stepped to the side and gestured for me to lead the group.
“Good idea,” I agreed.
Then I started to lead the small army along the cliff’s edge to the point a bit further down where the ramp was located. As we stepped closer, I saw we were going to have to drop down to it because there was about a five-foot gap between the level of the surface ground and the ramp itself.
“We’re going to have to jump down a little bit here,” I called over my shoulder to the warriors behind me. “I’ll go down first.”
I quickened my pace a bit as I moved up to the ridge, and I considered shifting now. After a quick internal debate, I decided to see if I could do a partial body shift, which was something I hadn’t tried before.
I focused on everything from my midcalf down, and I urged the shift to stay isolated to just that region of my body. Then my boots disappeared into the gray fur of my wolf paws, and I felt the cold of the snow through the heavy pads on the bottom of my feet. Long claws extended out of my toes that touched down onto the ground like snow chains on truck tires, and I knew I’d have a lot more traction now.
A smug smirk crossed my face, and Elora looked at me with an impressed light in her amber-red eyes.
“That is new,” my silver-haired beauty murmured with adoration.
“I thought it might be useful,” I chuckled and shrugged.
Then I turned around, crouched low into my knees at the edge of the cliff, and hopped down onto the icy path five feet below. The pads of my wolf paws would have skidded right out from under me if I didn’t have the clutching action of my claws that acted like professional ice climbing boots. I felt secure in my footing, and I tested them briefly to see how much grip I had. I was pleased to feel as much traction as if I were wearing fuzzy shoes on one of those Velcro jump walls.
I stood up, and my face came up to the middle of Elora’s shins, so I cranked my head all the way back to look up at her.
“Come on down,” I said as I held my hands up to help her.
Elora smirked playfully at me as she stretched her wings out wide and practically floated down through the air until she stood a few steps down the ramp from me.
“Right,” I chuckled, and then I looked back up to see Ayen’s ass coming at me. “Dude!”
“Watch out!” Ayen laughed as his leather-booted feet slipped down the icy wall of the chasm, and he clung by his hands to the flat surface above.
I stepped quickly back and watched as my blond friend dropped down. He sank into a deep crouch and almost lost his footing on the icy surface, but I steadied him with a firm hand on his upper back.
“Ah, thank you, my friend.” Ayen grinned at me as he slowly stood up to his full height.
“You’re welcome,” I chuckled and shook my head at his bullheaded entrance to the chasm.
He gave me an impish grin, and then he stepped out of the way to wait beside Elora. The path was only wide enough for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder, so they had to shift further and further down as more of our companions joined us on the ramp.
“Go to the front, my king,” Sontar insisted when he landed with more grace than Ayen had. “I will assist the others.”
“Thanks,” I said to the white-haired elf.
My companions hugged their backs to the chasm walls as I began making my way to the front of the line, and when I reached Elora’s side, I looked back to see how Sontar was doing.
The lean elf was almost tall enough to just lift the people down, but most of them appeared to prefer hopping down by themselves. Sontar stood by waiting to lend a hand if anyone needed help.
Lyrie was next, and she pursed her lips with defiant determination. She shook her head at Sontar when he reached up to help her, so he dropped his arms most of the way to his sides, but I could see the tension in his muscles as he remained ready to catch her if she slipped. I was impressed when Lyrie’s fur-covered legs landed steadily on the top of the ramp, and she stood up with the grace of a crane.
We shifted slowly forward until Elora and I found ourselves on the part of the ramp where it started to slope at a steeper angle. We waited there as the last of our group hopped down onto the ledge with us, and finally, the only person who remained was Nae.
The scarred Valkyrie took a different route, and she spread her metallic wings out wide before she glided down and landed just in front of me.
“There are far fewer Draugar than I expected to see,” Nae said without hesitation.
“Yeah, I thought there’d be more, too,” I agreed. “I’m sure it won’t last, though, so let’s get down this ramp to more even ground before they show up.”
“A fine idea.” Nae nodded, and she spread her wings back out.
The gray-haired elf took off into the air and flew back to the end of the line without another word.
I looked at Elora and nodded, and then we started to ease our way down the steeper ice path toward the bottom of the chasm. I shifted my eyes and ears into sharper focus as we descended so I could watch and listen for anything coming toward us. The entire chasm was eerily quiet aside from the breathing and footsteps of my companions and the occasional gust of wind through the upper areas of the chasm.
We were about forty feet from the bottom when a sharp hissing sound suddenly echoed through the chasm, and my heart bolted into a panicked rhythm. It was exactly like the sound that had tormented me in my dreams last night, and I looked around as my muscles tensed for a surprise attack.
“Shiiiit,” I sucked in a breath between my teeth.
Chapter 15
“What?” Elora asked, and she raised her spear in a defensive position as her wings rustled with tension. “What did you see, Levi?”
“It’s not what I saw,” I muttered as the hissing sound continued.
I turned back to see who was right behind me in our group. Ayen and Ivaran were directly behind Elora and me.
“Are there ice snakes around this region?” I asked the black-skinned elf as the hissing seemed to grow more hostile in my ears.
“Ice snakes?” Ivaran leaned back from the surprise, and his light-gray eyebrows furrowed until they met in the middle. “I have never heard of such a creature before. Is this something you have seen?”
“No…” I muttered, and I slowly started to walk forward again.
I urged my ears to sharpen further, and I felt the outer structure of my human ears elongate and stretch into something similar to a bat’s. My new and improved ears twitched from side to side as I tried to locate the source of the ominous hissing.
But the sound faded away and was gone almost as quickly as it had begun. It didn’t return as we made our way to the bottom of the ramp where it ended in the center of the iced-over rocky floor of the chasm.
Elora, Ayen, Ivaran, and I moved away from the end of the slick ramp and grouped together as we waited for the rest of our army to reach the bottom.
Large boulders and ridges cropped up all over the place like massive headstones in an ancient graveyard. They really obstructed my view of the area around us, and I knew we could be caught unaware if we weren’t careful. The chasm ran as far as I could see in either direction, and it was massively wide. I guessed the distance from one wall to the opposite was at least a hundred and fifty yards, but it was hard to tell precisely from here.
“What did you hear, my friend?” Ayen asked, and his voice oozed with curiosity while we waited.
“Hissing,” I said in a quiet voice.
“Demons?” Elora asked.
“Maybe…” I muttered.
“I do not hear any hissing,” Ivaran mused. “Are you certain that was what you heard?”
“Yes,” I said, and I pointed to my bat-like ears. “It was far off, but it was definitely hissing… like a snake.”
“Odd,” Ivaran mumbled. “I cannot recall the last time I encountered a snake.”
“I can,” Ayen snorted. “The creature soon became this very strap on my quiver.”
“Ah, yes.” Elora grinned. “I remember that day.”
A slight smile snuck into the corners of my mouth as my lover and my friend shared a memory I suspected was from before I’d arrived on Asgard. Then I tried to shake off the ominous shadow that seemed to loom over me, and I listened once more to make sure the hissing was truly gone.
I didn’t hear another foreign sound, and a few minutes later, both my companions and the group of dark elves were milling around as they waited for further instructions.
“Which way do we go?” Sontar asked from the middle of the group in a voice that echoed all around us like a car horn through an empty tunnel.
“Let’s–” I started to say when a chorus of low groans interrupted me. “Did you hear that?”
“Draugar,” Nae declared with certainty.
Then there was a shift in the air, and the rotting stench of dead flesh hit me hard in the face.
“Yep!” I called to the entire army. “We’ve got company!”
A small army of what looked like fifty Draugar lurched around one of the pickup truck-sized boulders, and they set their sunken, lifeless eyes on me.
“I will never cease to be astonished by these grotesque creatures.” Ivaran grimaced as he raised his feathered totem. A split second later, his dark lips mumbled something under his breath, and the ethereal-edged shadow blade extended from his free hand.
“Archers!” I called as I saw Ayen nock an arrow into his own bow. “Take out the front lines!”
“Aye,” my big blond friend muttered as a savage grin stretched his mouth wide.
A split second later, a volley of dark-wood arrows flew over our heads and slammed into the front lines of the Draugr horde. None of them fell, but the arrows did slow the undead bastards down a bit.
“Aaah!” Elora rushed forward with her wings stretched out wide and her feet barely making contact with the ground, and the point of her spear skewered directly into a Draugr’s throat. The blade was wide enough that it nearly decapitated the undead creature as Elora followed through with her strike, but it hung on by two thin strands of rotting flesh on either side of its neck.
Then Ivaran shifted forward with a little less flair than my silver-haired warrior, and he sliced his shadow blade harshly into the rib cage of another walking corpse.
His blade wavered at the edge as it sank several inches into the rotting flesh of the creature’s torso. A whole pile of dark gray meat and coagulated blood plopped all over the icy ground as Ivaran yanked his shadow sword back out of the creature’s body. Then the black-skinned elf twirled the blade back around and hacked into the Draugr from the other side.
The frostbitten beast’s torso was nearly chopped in half like a tree, and its top half toppled to the ground after one more solid swing from Ivaran.
One of my dwarven warriors used his large axe to block a strike from one of the Draugar’s rusted swords, and he caught the edge just before it came down onto his red-haired head. The dwarf grunted with effort as he shoved the rotten monster back, and then he swung his axe around like a professional lumberjack. His blade smashed into the exposed hip joint of the undead creature with so much force that the Draugr was broken in two. Then the redheaded dwarf finished off the Draugr with a brutal blow to the bastard’s already cracked skull.
The rest of our companions had launched themselves into action, too, and the sounds of battle echoed throughout the chasm. The clashing sounds of blades against blades mixed with the splattering sounds of blood and guts and the plop and thump of dismembered body parts.
My bat ears shifted back to my normal human ones at the assault of new sounds, but I maintained the ice-climbing claws of my wolf paws. I dug the claws into the icy ground as I jumped into the battle alongside my companions, and I pulled my sword from the sheath on my belt.
“Uuuurrrrgg!” One Draugr with barely any flesh left on its skull lurched right for me.
I grinned with malice at the ugly fucker, and I crouched low as I swung my sword back in preparation for a brutal strike. The Draugr was sluggish in its movements, and I slammed my blade into its exposed skull. Then whatever rotting meat that had once been the creature’s brains splattered out across the icy chasm walls.
The creature’s body continued to stumble around and swing its blade out wildly like a blindfolded kid at a piñata, so I ducked out of the way of its blade and cut its arms off with an upward swing of my sword. The remaining flesh on the Draugr’s torso snapped away from my blade, and its decapitated body finally dropped to the ground.
I quickly took down two more Draugar with my flesh-rending sword until they were a pile of twitching limbs, and then I took a second to check on my companions.
Ayen and Kine were standing back to back as they let a series of light and dark-wood arrows fly out at our group of Draugar and a second horde that were stumbling toward us. They must have been lured over by the cacophony of our battle, and I suspected they wouldn’t be the only ones to be drawn to the sounds.
My first instinct might have been to worry, but we were down here to eliminate as many of these bastards as we could. It would be a bit more simple if they came to us, and if we didn’t have to hunt down the frost giants, that would save even more time.
Then I spotted Nae as she twirled through the air with a broadsword held over her head, and her asymmetrical hair swished out like a banner. The scarred Valkyrie sliced across the ripped throat of a nearby Draugr with the tips of her wings. The beautiful metallic feathers slashed through the rotting bastard’s flesh as if they were as sharp as razors blades.
Nae was impressive in the air and with her weapon, and I immediately lost count of how many of the stinking creatures she took down.
