Soul Fire (Darkling Mage 8)

That was why it was so cold. We were someplace that was made almost entirely out of stone, with no walls, no sky. Just a sharp, cold wind.

A howl pierced the silence. I looked around cautiously, still finding nothing, only then realizing that the howl came from somewhere beneath us. The plumes of fire in Romira’s hands rose and split into three burning, coalescing clumps, which slowly took the shape of three dogs. Each dog had three flaming heads.

“Hot damn,” I said.

Romira rose unsteadily to her feet, Royce guiding her back up. “Yep,” she said, chuckling weakly. “This is Cerberus’s gift.”

I’d seen Romira craft an elemental servant before – a secretary made entirely out of fire, who helped her man the front desk at the Lorica – but this was something different. Nine burning hound’s heads turned to her, waiting for a command, their eyes smoldering like coals.

She spoke quietly. “Fetch.”

The hounds took off, speeding in three different directions.

“Didn’t know you could do that,” Royce said. “Kind of hot.”

“Shut up,” Romira said, half-smiling. “They should be able to track Herald down. I can see through their eyes. I’ll let you know if they see anything.”

The hounds offered a secondary benefit – they left trails of fire in their wake, presenting a form of light to guide us through Odin’s weird, undoubtedly trapped dimension. We walked alongside the middle hound’s path cautiously, but kept sure to catch up with the fires. After a while, the flames behind us would die out from the wet and cold.

“So,” Mason said. “Anyone have any idea what this place is, exactly?”

Bastion shivered as he spoke. “It kind of feels like the place the Great Beasts sent us to. All this wet rock, I mean.”

I shook my head. “This is different. No storms, no dragons. Everything feels dead.”

“Sounds about right.” Asher looked around us, green eyes seeing nothing and everything. “This isn’t the Norse version of hell, but it isn’t quite Valhalla either. It’s something Odin made specifically for this purpose. To keep Herald, and to confront us. Like setting a stage.”

I clenched my teeth and my fists. “Go figure. Trust an entity to be all about dramatics. I still don’t understand why Odin abducted Herald. And you’d think he’d have sent out the welcome party by now.”

Vanitas’s garnets flashed red in the gloom. “Careful what you wish for,” he said.

Asher stopped in place, holding his arms out to either side of him, calling a silent halt. “They’re here. Odin’s chosen. The valiant dead.”

We’d stopped just long enough that the flames left by Romira’s hounds had nearly vanished. Their illumination was replaced by several pinpricks of ghoulish blue light, which grew as they approached into the recognizable shapes of men. Dozens and dozens of them, all clad in various forms of armor, wielding an array of wicked weapons. Just a ton of dead Vikings, as far as the eye could see.

“There,” Asher whispered. “Brave warriors who fell in battle, sent by Odin to fight us.”

“Can you control them?” I asked. The air felt even colder.

“No,” Asher grunted. “They’re the heroic fallen, brave warriors who died in battle. They belong to the All-Father and his valkyries. Nothing I can do to turn them against Odin.” He bared his teeth. “But I can still fight.”

Asher slashed his hand through the air, and at the peak of the arc I caught a glimpse of something hideously sharp and white firing out of his arm. It was a spear made entirely out of bone. Whether it was his bone, or substance borrowed from the unseen undead, I wasn’t sure. Man. Necromancers are creepy.

The spear soared through the air, hitting its mark right in the neck. The warrior gurgled as the bone pierced him from his throat through the back of his skull. He crumpled to the ground, his blood a spurt of liquid black. The other warriors roared in fury, clanging their shields and weapons.

“Oh my God,” I mumbled, at once horrified and amazed by Asher’s aim and talent. He’d grown a hell of a lot since he joined the Boneyard. It was the Carver effect.

“You can’t hurt them if they’re already dead,” Asher said. “Snuff out as many as you can. They’re nothing if not loyal, and they’ll keep coming back to fight for as long as Odin asks them to.”

This was, once again, the Carver effect. He’d educated Asher extensively about the afterlife in different world cultures. I’d only read far enough about the Norse to know about their glorious dead. They did have one other concept of the underworld, though, and that was the one ruled by Hel, daughter of Loki, and the actual Norse goddess of the dead. Knowing what we did of Izanami, I could only hope that we’d never run into Hel, or any of their other peers.

“Vanitas?” I said. “Can you kill ghosts?”

Vanitas laughed gleefully as he soared into battle, his jewels drawing a bloody, scintillant line through the air.

“Only one way to find out.”

Chapter 27