Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (5 page)

assailant.

Then the path vanished entirely, and we realized the trees themselves

were moving to block our flight. I pulled the girls close and shredded

everything around us in a whirlwind of spinning blades, and looked up to take

a bearing on the sun.

“That way!” I pointed. An ancient-looking oak stood directly in our path.

“How are we going to get through?” Cerise panted.

“Like this,” I said grimly. I pulled deep on my magic, and the ground

beneath the oak moved to shove it aside. It fell with a tremendous crash of

breaking wood, and the rest of the trees seemed to draw back. But Cerise

looked skeptical.

“You can’t possibly do that to every tree that gets in our way,” she

objected.

“Watch me,” I growled, and stalked forward. “Stay behind me, and stick

close.”

I hacked and smashed a path straight through the forest, leaving a trail

wide enough to protect my charges from the hostile plant life. My amulet

replenished my mana almost as fast as I was using it, and for a few minutes I

thought I’d beaten the trap. It might be a little slow, and I’d need a rest break at

some point, but we could get through like this.

Then a flight of goblin arrows came hissing out of the woods behind us.

The girls were both hit, Avilla in a leg and Cerise in the side, and several

arrows planted themselves in our packs.

“Damn it!”

I threw a storm of force blades into the undergrowth behind us, and a

high-pitched scream said I’d hit something. But I couldn’t see the little

nuisances at any distance, not with all this cover to hide behind.

“Run!” Avilla cried urgently, darting past me. “Only half a mile to the

edge!”

I followed her, throwing out more blades to fend off a renewed attack

27

from the trees. “You won’t make it!” I argued. “Not with those wounds.”

“Cerise has demonic vitality,” Avilla informed me.

“Avilla’s body is spell-wrought,” Cerise countered. “One arrow won’t

stop us, but ten will. Move! We can outrun goblins.”

I ran.

It was a mad, nightmare race. With no time to clear a path we had to

weave our way between the trees, fending off lashing branches and grasping

underbrush again. More goblins were moving to intercept us, and every time

we thought we’d lost them another flight of arrows would pelt us from a new

direction.

They were smaller projectiles than a human bow would launch, with a lot

less force behind them, and that was the only thing that saved us. Sometimes I

got a force wall up in time, but more often than not another arrow would lodge

itself in one of our number. I took one in the arm and another in the chest, and

had to waste precious seconds ripping the second one free and stopping the

bleeding. The witches gasped out protective charms as they ran, but even so

they were starting to look like pincushions. Poor Avilla even had one sticking

out of her breast, which had to hurt like hell.

Finally we smashed through yet another thicket, and found ourselves at the

edge of a wide cleared space. I threw up a barrier behind us as soon as the

lack of cover registered on my weary mind, and we all stumbled forward. Two

heartbeats later another volley of arrows rattled off my shield.

There was a cluster of ruins that might once have been a village a few

hundred yards from the edge of the forest. The buildings had been burned,

recently enough that thin trails of smoke still rose here and there. There were

moving figures between us and the ruins, and for one heart-stopping moment I

thought we’d been herded into another band of monsters.

Then I realized they were human.

There was a line of carts and wagons drawn up in an open field next to

the ruins, with several groups of people gathered around them. Several were

already shouting and pointing in our direction. Most were civilians, a crowd of

men and women in ragged clothes clutching bundles of belongings. But a good

percentage of them were soldiers, dressed in chain mail and bearing a varied

28

assortment of spears, swords and bows.

“Keep running,” I gasped out, and stumbled to a stop. They girls took my

advice, making a beeline for the hoped-for safety of the guards while I turned

to face the way we’d come.

They might just take us all in out of the goodness of their hearts, but I

wasn’t counting on it. Soldiers weren’t going to turn away a pair of cute young

girls, but I’d better make an impression.

A half-dozen goblins burst from the trees and stopped, looking around

wildly for a second as they took in the scene. I threw a hail of force blades

downrange with a dramatic gesture and completely unnecessary incantation.

Two of the little monsters went down, one decapitated and the other cut clean

in half, and the others retreated into the trees. A few arrows rained down

around me, several bouncing off my shield.

I exchanged fire with the creatures for a few seconds, but that didn’t seem

to be getting us anywhere. A couple of the soldiers snapped off shots of their

own, and a squad of them began cautiously approaching me with their shields

raised. Then the lumbering form of a troll emerged from the woods, and they

decided maybe it would be wiser to watch from a distance.

An especially wrinkly goblin wearing a feathered headdress and about a

dozen amulets sat on its shoulder, waving a length of carved bone at me

menacingly.

“You no stop Gug!” The creature shouted proudly. “Spirits of earth

protect! Gug, smash puny human!”

More goblins appeared along the edge of the woods, capering and

cheering.

I cracked my knuckles, and conjured a ball of flame in one hand. “Come

and get it, ugly.”

The troll grinned, exposing far too many teeth, and charged me.

I stood watching as nonchalantly as I could manage, trying desperately to

pretend this was just another raid. I could see the bubble of protective magic

around the troll, and my previous tactics weren’t going to work. A gaggle of

invisible spirits stood ready to oppose any earth spells I attempted, and the

troll was warded against fire. A second ward confused me for a moment, until

29

I realized it was a protection against physical attacks. It wasn’t terribly strong,

but it would turn light blows aside and blunt the force of heavy ones a bit. All

in all it was a pretty impressive setup.

Too bad for the goblin he was up against me. When the troll was maybe

twenty feet away I conjured an invisible force wall right in front of him, with a

thin spike of force two feet long projecting out of it at chest level. The troll’s

own momentum impaled it on the spike a heartbeat later.

The shaman’s eyes went wide as I strolled up to the confused troll, still

maintaining the wall and spike.

“No way!” He exclaimed. “Die! Die die die die!”

He hurled a flurry of little balls of lightning at me with the wand, but they

just bounced off the force wall. I put a hand on my side of the barrier, right

over the spike.

“Oh, yes,” I said with a nasty grin. Then I fed power into the spike,

making it grow into a forest of blades that forced their way out in all

directions. The troll’s body came apart in a shower of gore, and the shaman

fell into the blades. He didn’t fare any better.

I turned my gaze on the edge of the woods, and the goblins there fell back

in a panic. In moments they were gone.

Wearily I let the spell drop, and set to work digging the arrow out of my

arm.

There was a rattle of chain mail nearby, and a man in armor stepped up

beside me. “That was impressive work, sir.”

I shrugged. “Usually I make my way as a healer, but it seems I have a

knack for that sort of thing. Daniel Black, wandering adept.”

According to Cerise that meant I was a formally trained wizard, but not an

official member of any of the various factions that vied for control of the

magical world here. Such men were rare but not completely unheard of, and

they tended to be sought after by nobles who wanted magical services without

too many strings attached.

“Marcus Rain, Captain of the 5th Margold foot.”

He offered his hand, and I shook it with as firm a grip as I could muster.

30

“Well met, Captain. An interesting group you have there. I take it you’re out

collecting survivors?”

He nodded grimly. “We were dispatched to suppress a string of goblin

attacks, but then our priest told us the Golden City itself is beset and the

monsters aren’t going to stop coming. A troll got him the next day, more’s the

pity. We’ve been fighting a slow retreat ever since.”

“Well, I’m afraid that agrees with my own information. It looks like this

is Ragnarok, and things are going to get a lot worse before there’s any hope of

getting better.”

He nodded. “I was afraid of that. It looks like they’ve already gotten

behind us, so the only thing to do is pull back to town with whoever we can

save. You’re welcome to join us, if you like. We don’t have a court wizard,

and I’m sure the Baron would want to consult with you.”

“Yes, that seems wise,” I agreed. “I can’t keep fending off these attacks

by myself forever. Ah, these are my apprentices, Cerise and Avilla.”

The girls had drifted back over now that the fighting was done. They were

moving a lot more gingerly now, and I wasn’t sure if they’d been running on

adrenaline before or if they were faking it for the captain’s benefit.

At any rate, they both curtsied prettily. The captain looked them both up

and down with a frankness that would have gotten him slapped back in

America, and a hint of a smile crossed his weathered face. “‘Apprentices’, eh?

Yeah, they look pretty magical alright. Don’t worry, girls, I run a tight outfit

here. None of my men are going to bother you, and if one of the refugees gets

stupid just scream and we’ll take care of it.”

Cerise molded herself against my side like we’d been lovers for years,

and nodded gravely. “Thank you, sir.”

Avilla laid a tentative hand on my arm, and looked up at me with

repressed tears in her eyes. “Master Black? The numbness spell is wearing off.

Can you... um... the arrow?”

God, I knew she was acting and I still wanted to sweep her into my arms

and reassure her. But I’d gathered from Cerise that this place was about as

brutal and anti-egalitarian as you’d expect from a preindustrial feudal regime,

so showing too much concern would just draw attention to her.

31

“Of course I’m going to take care of it, silly girl. I certainly don’t want it

to scar. Captain, I assume you don’t intend to move out for a bit?”

He glanced at the sun. “Take another hour or so to finish searching the

ruins. I don’t suppose you could take a look at some of the men too?”

“Certainly,” I assured him. “But that will take time. I can mend most

wounds in a matter of hours, but I can’t do it while walking.”

He studied the little caravan for a moment, and nodded decisively. “Not a

problem, sir. We’ll set you up in the back of one of the big wagons. That’ll

give you room to work, and a bit of shelter from the snow. I just hope the

weather holds.”

I followed his gaze, and found dark clouds on the horizon to the north.

“So do I, captain. So do I.”

In the Norse sagas Ragnarok was supposed to be preceded by the

Fimbulwinter - thirty years of bitter cold, without a single day of warmth. Was

that really what was going to happen, or was Hecate’s choice of words just a

coincidence? Hopefully the latter, because food was one thing I couldn’t just

conjure up.

The wagon wasn’t much to look at. Just a big box on wheels, with a

wooden frame supporting a canvas roof and sides. The front and back had

flaps that could be laced shut, but even so its value as shelter was pretty

modest. It was full of hay bales and barrels of beer when we arrived, but

Captain Rain called over a squad of his troops and had most of the hay cleared

out in a matter of minutes. They left a single layer of bales covering the floor of

the wagon, as well as a couple of barrels, but that gave us plenty of room.

We settled ourselves on the hay with a collective sigh of relief.

“We made it,” Avilla declared.

“I have to say, I thought we were goners for a while there,” Cerise

admitted.

“My list of critical magic items to make is growing a lot faster than I have

time to work on it,” I said. “I hate being caught off guard like that.”