Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (33 page)

they can before the giants come.”

The men blanched at her casual explanation.

“In that case anyone who goes outside right now is at risk of becoming

a meal for the things. Our best strategy is to stay put for an hour or so, until

they’ve had a chance to gorge themselves. Go ahead and get everyone packed

and ready to move, but try not to make noise. They’ve got keen senses, and too

much activity might draw their attention.”

“Make sure you concentrate on essential supplies. Weapons, warm

clothing and food come first. Tools and valuables get second priority, and

anything else is just extra weight. Ty to plan out an inconspicuous route to the

granary, and make sure everyone knows where you’re going.”

“Are you still going to rescue Cerise?” Oscar asked.

“Yeah. If I’m not back in an hour I want you to leave without me. I’ll

meet you at the granary, and we can plan our next move there.”

“I’m coming with you,” Avilla said firmly.

“Damn right you are,” I agreed. “Are you armed?”

“I… um… yes. You’re not going to argue?” She pulled a heavy

butcher knife from her sleeve, and reluctantly handed it over when I reached

for it.

I had no intention of letting her out of my sight until we were out of this

mess. Two or three ungols would go through Oscar’s men like a hot knife

through butter, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the one we’d talked to made a

point of trying to kill her. But I wasn’t going to say that.

“I’m not going to tell you that you can’t help rescue the woman you

love,” I told her.

“Daniel!” She gasped, glancing nervously at the men.

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I shrugged. “Time to stop hiding, Avilla. I don’t mind, and if anyone

who works for me has a problem with it they’ll just have to learn to keep their

mouths shut.”

Oscar shrugged. “I had a cousin who was like that. It happens.”

Gronir grinned. “I reckon us survivors knew it already, milord. It’s

obvious just seein them look at each other.”

I chuckled. “It is, isn’t it? Anyway, I might need you. You know how to

handle yourself, and there will probably be magic to deal with. So yes, you’re

with me. Hang on a minute.”

I focused my attention on the knife, layering a simple blade of force

along the edge. I didn’t have time for a real enchantment, but this would last a

few hours.

“There,” I handed it back to her. “That edge will cut stone and steel

now, so be careful with it. Do you need anything else?”

She waved vaguely at the kitchen. “I’ve already gathered what I could

that might be useful. I’m ready.”

“Good work. Questions, anyone?”

“You sure you don’t want a few of the boys to come with you?” Oscar

asked.

I reluctantly shook my head. “No, the more people we have involved

the more things can go wrong. We need to get to Cerise before they get any

bright ideas about using her as a hostage, and that means we need to be

stealthy.”

“Anything else? No? Then let’s move.”

The street was pitch black when we crept out the smithy’s back door.

I stood still for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and wondered if I

could manage infrared vision.

Sadly, the answer was no. Maybe low-light vision, like a cat, but that

could take hours and it probably wouldn’t work right for Avilla.

“I can’t see a thing,” she whispered. “Can you?”

I drew Grinder and activated it, illuminating the street with its harsh

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violet glare. Was that a long, sinuous shape easing back out of sight on that

rooftop down the street? Or was it just my imagination?

“We’re going to have to use lights,” I reluctantly concluded. “Damn,

that’s going to make this harder. Here.”

I conjured a short baton of stone, and stuck a small flame to the end.

Dimmer than a normal torch, so hopefully the light wouldn’t carry too far.

There was a good chance no one would be standing watch anyway in this

storm.

I handed the makeshift light to Avilla. “That should be enough to find

our way. But stay close to me, it’ll go out if you get too far away.”

“How far is too far?” She asked nervously.

“Not sure. Maybe twenty or thirty paces?” I deactivated my weapon

and started slowly down the street, peering cautiously through the falling snow.

It was coming down pretty heavily, but my shield kept it from actually touching

me.

“Oh. That’s not so bad, then.”

I’d made Avilla a warmth cloak, and her borrowed dress was heavy

wool. But I couldn’t fight if I was carrying her, and letting her walk beside me

put her outside my shield. Would a lurking ungol notice that the snow was

touching her, and decide that was a good opportunity to attack? Or would they

see that I was still holding my weapon, and decide I was trying to lure them

into an ambush?

Great. Now I was playing mind games with demons.

I pulled Avilla into the lee of a building, and spent a few precious

moments throwing a shield around her. Yet another thing drawing on my mana

supply, and one solid blow would break the spell. But it made her look as

protected as I was.

She accepted the protection with a grateful smile. “Ah, thank you. The

way my cloak melts the snow I was starting to get wet there.”

“No problem. Now, let’s think about how to do this. There are guards

at the temple. They’re probably all indoors now, which means the doors and

windows will all be closed and barred.”

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Avilla frowned thoughtfully as we crept down the street. “They know

what I look like, so I can’t just go first and distract them. I’m still bursting with

that power you gave me, so I can work bit of direct magic. But the only sleep

spell I know is foiled by cold iron, and they’ll be wearing armor.”

“Hmm. Guess it’s up to me, then.”

I pressed on in silence for a few minutes, wracking my brain for

ideas. How would I tackle this if it were a quest in an RPG? One with no save

points or resurrections, and a killer GM. Oh, and there was no rulebook to

consult.

Something conservative, then. But still, something a bunch of feudal

quasi-Vikings wouldn’t think to prepare for.

By the time the temple came into view I had a few ideas, but the

layout ruled out some of them. It was a big stone building, a bit like a medieval

church only not as tall. Stone steps at the front led up to a pair of heavy

wooden doors carved with images I couldn’t quite make out in the darkness.

Along the sides were rows of high, narrow shutters that I assumed must cover

windows. I could see faint traces of magic clinging to the building, and

considerably more radiating from the ground it stood on.

Holy ground?

That could make this more complicated, depending on what it did.

Best to delay contact for as long as possible.

“Can you find her?” I asked Avilla.

“Yes, we have more than enough of a bond for that. But I’ll need a

minute, and depending on what wards the priest has they might react.”

“We can work with that.” I took Avilla’s shield down, and picked her

up.

“Hold on, and try to stay quiet,” I told her. “We’re going airborne.”

She gulped, and closed her eyes. “O-okay.”

I jumped.

I was getting better with force-boosted leaps. My first jump took us to

the roof of one of the three-story tenements facing the little plaza that held the

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temple. I didn’t linger on the windswept roof, not knowing if the wooden

shingles would hold our weight for any length of time.

My second jump took us across the plaza. The wind immediately

grabbed us and pushed, throwing me off course. I pushed back, squinting

through the blowing snow at the looming shape of our destination. Up, up,

rising above the steeply-sloped roof. There was no steeple, but a taller

structure that was probably a bell tower rose from the far end.

A hard push in that direction, and Avilla squeaked fearfully in my

arms. No doors or roof hatches that I could see, even as we closed the

distance. But the roof looked like slate, so it ought to hold our weight.

I landed us as gently as I could manage in the gusting wind, on a

sloped expanse of roof tiles just upslope of the bell tower. My shield expanded

at the last moment to cushion our landing, and nearly pitched us right off into

space. I held us in place with one last, frantic force push, and my feet settled to

touch the steep surface.

I dropped to my knees, and set Avilla down.

She opened her eyes, and plastered herself against the tiles.

“Eep! Where are we, Daniel?”

“The roof of the temple. Would they use the main chamber for this

kind of ritual?”

She visibly gathered her wits, and shook her head.

“No, he’ll have a ritual chamber. Behind the alter, or maybe in a

cellar. Probably a cellar, actually. I’ve never seen a temple to the Aesir

before, but Cerise told me they like to do their dark deeds underground.”

“Alright. One thing at a time, then.”

I reached into the roof tiles with my magic, and confirmed that they

still counted as Earth to my sorcery. Good. It took only a few seconds to shape

a section of tiles together into a solid mass, with handholds rising from the

outer surface for us both to hang onto.

That would keep us from getting blown off or falling through while I

did the rest.

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Raising a force dome over us to block out the snow and wind took a

little more effort, since I wanted to be sure it would last a good while after I

took my attention off of it. The roar of the wind faded as the barrier of magic

absorbed most of its force, and the snow no longer reached our patch of roof.

“I’m putting out your torch now,” I warned Avilla.

“What are we doing up here?” She asked.

“Attacking from an unexpected direction. Stay quiet, I’m going to cut a

hole in the roof and take a look at what we’re up against.”

I had to carefully brush away the snow that clung to the roof first,

since a puff of falling flakes might well draw attention. But after that it was

trivial to cut through the heavy tile and the wood beneath with a force blade,

and lift out a small section of the roof.

Below us a single long room ran most of the length of the building. A

few torches in brackets on the walls provided dim illumination, just enough to

pick out the major features of the room.

There were no pews, just a wide open space with a wooden floor. A

large statue stood at the end opposite the doors, depicting a bearded man with

an eyepatch holding a spear in one hand, with ravens sitting on his shoulders.

That would be Odin, I suppose.

At the statue’s feet stood an alter that was considerably less

ceremonial than the ones in Catholic churches. It was a slab of weathered stone

a bit longer than a man’s height, with a mass of runes and vaguely Celtic-

looking knotwork carved into its sides. But what grabbed my attention were the

gleaming manacles sitting atop neatly coiled lengths of chain at each corner.

Lovely. There really weren’t any good gods in this world, were

there?

In the dim torchlight I could see a dozen men sleeping in bedrolls in

the middle of the room, and three more awake and playing some kind of card

game. There was a door behind the alter, with another man leaning against the

wall next to it. They were all pretty normal-looking men at arms, wearing

chainmail shirts and armed with a variety of spears, swords and axes.

Tricky.

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I put the section of roof back in place, and told Avilla what I’d seen.

“Could we go around them?” She asked. “The door must lead to the

inner sanctum and the priests’ quarters. If we move further down the roof we

could come in through that and search for the way down to the cellar.”

I rubbed my chin. “Maybe. But if we’re sneaking through a maze of

little rooms it would be easy to blunder into someone, and have them shout

before we can react. Let me take another look at this.”

I lifted the roof patch again, and studied the layout. The roof was

supported by an open framework of heavy timber, which included thick

horizontal crossbeams running the width of the room. Easily big enough to

walk on, although getting from one to another would take magic. The guy by the

door looked like he’d managed to fall asleep standing up, and the room had

several shadowy corners where it might be possible to float down to the floor

without being spotted.

Avilla’s head appeared next to me for a moment, but then she

squeezed her eyes shut and pulled away. Damn, she really did have trouble

with heights.

I shifted to put my lips at her ear. “Just stay here for a few minutes.

I’ve got this.”