Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (3 page)

when it saw me it growled angrily and ripped a beam out of the porch to

replace the lost weapon. The house groaned again, and the beast rushed

towards me.

As it stepped off the porch I turned the ground between us into mud six

feet deep.

The troll’s first step sunk a foot into the sucking muck, and tripped it. It

went down face-first with a tremendous splash, and immediately began

thrashing about trying to get a handhold to climb out. I gave it a few seconds to

get good and stuck, and then turned the mud into stone.

A couple of arrows bounced off my shield, but I ignored them.

The troll strained, but now it was pinned with both arms and two thirds of

its body stuck in a solid mass of rock. I walked up to its head, and conjured a

sledgehammer made entirely of stone that probably weighed forty pounds. I

used a bit of force magic to augment my muscles as I lifted it over my head,

and brought it down.

The first blow cracked the troll’s skull, but it took two more to properly

cave it in. I wasn’t sure if even that would be enough, so I pried it open and

roasted the tiny brain inside with a sustained jet of flame.

Then I turned to regard the goblins who’d been plinking arrows at me, and

raised the gore-streaked hammer.

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“Who’s next?” I growled.

They ran.

“Fuck, yeah! Look at the little bastards go. I like your style, Champion.”

I turned to find a pair of battered and bruised young witches regarding me

from the doorway of the burning house. Cerise had a goblin arrow stuck in her

shoulder, and Avilla was bleeding from several nasty gashes on her arms, but

they were both on their feet. Cerise had acquired a second silver knife from

somewhere, while Avilla held a bloody meat cleaver in one hand and clutched

a massive tome against her substantial chest.

Cerise was wide-eyed and flushed, giving me a half-crazed look I

couldn’t quite read. Avilla, on the other hand, wore a fierce expression of

defiance that somehow reminded me of a kitten. She was so adorable I just

wanted to bundle her up and keep her safe forever, and never mind the bloody

meat cleaver.

“You’re not bad yourself,” I replied wearily. “My name’s Daniel, by the

way. Daniel Black.”

“Well met, Daniel of the Blacks. May we shed oceans of blood together.”

O-kaaay.

“Thank you for saving us, Mr. Black,” Avilla put in. “But I have to ask

what Cerise offered for your help? Should I be prepared for a ravishing?”

She seemed more amused than worried, so I chuckled.

“I think the ravishing had better wait until we aren’t going to be

interrupted by another monster attack,” I said dryly. “Besides, the house is on

fire.”

She turned to look up at it, and nodded gravely. “Poor thing. It was

granny’s home, but it was always nice to me. I tried to stop the shamans from

killing it, but between the four of them and the troll it was just too much. I don’t

suppose you can put out the fire?

I glanced around at the snow-covered clearing, and then eyed the blazing

roof. “I think the house is done for regardless, but a chance to salvage supplies

would be good. Let me see what I can do.”

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Quenching fires was normally a simple task, easily within even my

minimal command of fire magic. But this was too big to put out all at once, and

house fires can be tricky. I took a deep breath, made sure my shield was stable,

and stepped past them into a living room that was rapidly filling up with

smoke.

I put out the floor and burning furniture easily enough, but as I worked on

the walls the floor began smoldering again. Was the basement on fire too?

I cut away a circular section of floor with a force blade and stepped back,

carefully holding the disk of wood in place until I was well away from the

hole. Sure enough, tongues of flame leaped up around the edges when I moved

it.

So I had to drop into the basement, put that out, and then gradually work

my way up. It took fifteen minutes before I got all the fires out, and by the time

I stumbled back out the door I was hacking coughing from the smoke despite

having heal myself twice. I collapsed next to the girls, and took a deep breath.

“Are you alright?” Avilla asked mildly. Her arms were bandaged now,

and she was carefully extracting the barbed arrow from Cerise’s shoulder. I

couldn’t help but notice how adroitly she wielded the little knife she was using

for the task. Cerise looked a little pale, but she was enduring the treatment as

stoically as anyone could have.

Avila paused to hand me a spare cloak, and I gratefully covered myself

up. It wasn’t enough, but it ought to keep me from getting frostbite in

uncomfortable places for the moment.

“Yeah, I’m just running low on mana,” I reassured her. “Need to catch my

breath a minute and let my lungs heal. But the fire’s out, so as soon as the

smoke clears you two can go back in and collect whatever you need.

She set the arrowhead aside and paused. “You have healing sorcery?

Should I be letting you do this? I was just going to sterilize it and sew it shut.”

“Hmm. Let me take a look at it.”

I leaned over and put my hand over the wound, reaching out with new

senses. Yes, I could shape the wound closed easily enough. That didn’t

completely repair the damage, but with proper encouragement it would be

good as new in a few hours. Interestingly I noted that there was already some

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sort of innate magic working to heal the girl’s wounds, or at least... hmmm...

was it just making sure they wouldn’t scar? Interesting.

“Your magic is warm,” Cerise murmured. “Kind of naughty, running all

through me like that. Feel anything you like?”

“Ahem. Yes, I think you’ll be fine now. Avilla, how about you?”

“I’ll be alright,” she said a little nervously. “Anyway, don’t we have

other things to worry about? What are we going to do?”

Was she worried about me discovering some secret if I used healing on

her? Well, whatever. She was right, so I could let her keep her secrets for the

moment.

“Well, I promised Hecate I’d protect Cerise here for a year and a day,

and that covers starving and freezing to death as well as monster attacks. She

also told me this is the beginning of Ragnarok, so I think we’d better assume

the goblins will be back with friends.”

They both grimaced. “I was afraid it was something like that,” Avilla

commented. “It never snows this early in the year, and it’s been coming down

for a week now.”

I frowned. “Do you two have anywhere to go?

“My mentor died of old age three years ago,” Cerise said. “She and

Avilla’s granny were good friends, so I’ve been staying here ever since. I

don’t really know anyone else. Witches aren’t exactly popular with the

mundanes, you know.”

“I’ve never even left the woods,” Avilla admitted. “Granny wouldn’t let

me go past the yard unless I was running errands with her, and after... after she

died, we’ve just been trying to avoid notice. I know there’s a village a few

miles down the path, but I don’t know if it would be any safer than here.”

Cerise snorted. “Hah. Tyler’s Grove doesn’t even have a palisade, let

alone a real wall, and the sheriff and a few retired armsmen are the only

people there who can fight worth a damn. Besides, I saw smoke from that

direction yesterday. They probably got hit before we did.”

I sighed. “Well, we need information at the very least, and big guys with

swords are always handy to have around when something is trying to eat you.

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Is there a castle or walled settlement anywhere in the area?”

“Lanrest has a wall,” she said after a moment’s thought. “That’s about

thirty miles down the road from Tyler’s Grove, though. It could be a rough trip,

especially if the weather keeps getting worse.”

“Will we be any safer with people than monsters?” Avilla asked

doubtfully. “Worshipping the old gods will get us burned alive if anyone finds

out.”

“Well, obviously we won’t tell anyone you two are witches,” I pointed

out. “But I assume you have wizards or sorcerers or something like that here?”

“A few sorcerers, and every kingdom has at least one guild for wizards,”

Cerise nodded.

“Ok. How about we say I’m a traveling wizard, and you two are my

apprentices? Any leader with a brain is going to want all the magical help he

can get in a situation like this. With any luck we can find a tough group to join

up with or a castle that wants a healer on hand.”

“I like that idea,” Cerise agreed. “No one is going to wonder why a

wizard your age has a couple of sexy young girls with him, and then they’ll

ignore us completely.”

Avilla brightened. “Good point. Oh, and if people notice anything strange

about us we’ll just imply that our ‘master’ uses us for experiments.”

“Hey now, don’t go making me out to be an evil nutjob,” I put in.

“Desperate people will overlook a lot, but if they think I’m a danger to their

own daughters they’re liable to do something about it.”

They two witches shared a look at that, and broke into giggles.

“If they only knew,” Cerise chuckled, slipping her good arm around

Avilla’s waist. “We’re the ones their daughters are in danger from.”

“Better they don’t find out,” Avilla chided, leaning into her. “At least, not

until after we’ve infected them with our wicked ways.”

Ah, so that’s how it was. Well, they were certainly cute together.

“Heh. Well, it sounds like we have a plan. So we need gear for hiking in

snow and camping in the open, enough food to last a week or so, and whatever

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supplies you two need for your magic. Plus any portable valuables you can lay

hands on, of course.

The both nodded, and rose to their feet.

“Right. Come on Cerise, our brave protector can keep watch while we

pack.”

19

Chapter 2

The shakes hit me right after the girls went inside.

I sat down gingerly on the front steps of the ruined house, and put my head

between my knees. I’d been in fights before, but not like this. Growing up in

the bad part of town will teach you to look out for yourself, but there’s a big

different between a couple of bored gang members looking for someone to beat

up and a pack of goblins trying to carve you up with swords. Not to mention

the troll.

I’d almost died. Damn it, what was I thinking when I said yes?

I forced down a wave of nausea, and focused on breathing evenly.

Yeah, I almost died. I gave in to a momentary impulse to go play hero,

and now I was stuck with the job. Like it or not, this was my life now.

The nausea passed, leaving me weak and tired.

I sat up, and looked out into the darkness. A few flakes of snow were

falling from the dark sky, and the cold was beginning to seep through my

borrowed cloak. My feet were going numb. The shadows under the trees were

impenetrable, and I wondered what was out there watching me. Goblins?

Trolls? Worse? I didn’t even know what the possibilities were.

Avilla and Cerise were working some kind of magic, calling a stiff wind

that blew through the house and carried the worst of the smoke away.

Right. You’re a wizard now, Daniel. You got awesome magical powers

to go with the deadly danger. Better make the most of them, or you won’t live

long.

A life spent hunched over a keyboard in a cubicle had left me badly out of

shape for adventuring, and somehow I suspected reality wasn’t going to work

like the computer RPGs I’d played. But I was good at being a power-gaming

munchkin, so it was worth a shot.

It took about ten minutes of sorting through the new instincts I’d gained to

confirm that my first idea for improving the situation was possible, and another

hour of fumbling about to actually make it work. It was easy enough to conjure

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up a little disk of obsidian and hang it on a length of twine to create a makeshift

amulet, but after that it got tricky. I wanted a solution to the mana supply

problem first, but it seemed that my spiffy new abilities didn’t come with an

index.

So instead of just knowing what options were at my disposal, I had to

come up with an idea and then see if I could do it. Tapping ley lines wasn’t an

option, assuming such things even exist. Sucking the residual mana out of the

house would work, but that wouldn’t help once we left and I was hoping for a

more permanent solution. Besides, given the state of the building I was afraid it

would collapse if I depleted whatever structural reinforcement was still