The Legend of the Five and the Choosers of the Slain

Chapter 7 - The Shadows Strike

            Kara took a deep breath and let it back out with a cough. The air was thick and musty now, heavy and close. The dark walls of the canyon now looked darker than ever, and far steeper and more ominous. Only a few cracks were visible in them, out of which hung the scraggly nests of some strange birds, none of which they had yet seen. Indeed, except for a few insects on the canyon floor of dark rock and hard-packed, grey dirt, there was no life around at all. But worse than all this was the sky, overcast with heavy clouds, through which only a little pale light shone here and there… and the light had a slightly greenish hue, as if even the sun’s rays were sickened by this place.

            “This is it…” muttered Roata, half to herself, “the Valley of Death’s Shadow. The Imperials say that in the ancient war of the gods, Thanatos, the god of death himself, carved this canyon with his sword. And behind it, trailed death.”

            Kara could see that the atmosphere was having different effects on each of her sisters. Though she herself felt burdened by it, Roata seemed taken by a dread fascination, staring up at the cliff walls with wide eyes, clutching at her scepter. Thruda and Skogul were tense, anxious, their eyes darting this way and that in expectation of an attack from anywhere. Gondul, whom Kara had expected to look frightened, actually looked merely curious, inspecting the walls and gazing up at the nests in the crags with unconcealed wonder. Indeed, the frightened one appeared to be Myst, who hung her head and tried not to look around, as if attempting to disbelieve where she was.

            Finally, Kara looked back at their other traveling companions… the four hunters. The old man, “Slobby” as they called him, looked as entirely unaffected as ever, as if this were a mere relaxing stroll down an Imperial park; an everyday routine. Behind him, Van Pelt looked like Thruda and Skogul; anxious and also a bit excited. He held his crossbow at the ready, occasionally pointing it casually at a nest above, just in case some poor creature were unfortunate enough to show itself to him. The young one, Farmer, looked nervous, constantly licking his lips and glancing about.

            As for their leader, Roderick Van Helsinger… he appeared to be merely staring at the Valkyries’ legs.

            Kara casually lowered her spear in his general direction. “Perhaps ‘twould be better for your eyes to wander elsewhere, knave.”

            Roderick grinned. “Ah, my apologies. I was just… er… have we ever properly introduced ourselves? I cannot recall. I am Roderick Van Helsinger, and this is…”

            “Yes, you did that already,” Kara said shortly.

            “Er, I am merely trying to make conversation.”

            “Fine. I’m Kara. These are Myst, Roata, Gondul, Skogul, and Thruda. Nice to meet you.”

            “Well, I was just wondering…”

            Kara cut him off with a slight movement of her spear. “I have introduced myself, you have introduced yourself. This was a good conversation.” She gave him a smile of obviously false friendliness, then quickly returned to a stony expression and looked away.

            Roderick frowned. Then he sped up a bit until he had passed a few of the Valkyrie in stride and was standing next to Thruda. Skogul and Roata gave him a dark stare as he passed that bordered on the murderous. Then Thruda caught him looking at her, as his eyes came up from her legs, over her body, and finally into her own eyes. At that point, he immediately took a step back and swallowed.

            Thruda held her chin higher. “Do you find me interesting, male?”

            Roderick blinked. “Why, er, that is to say… yes. Uh, seldom have I seen a woman so… well-endowed. In all things, that is.”

            One side of Thruda’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Years ago, more years than I care to reveal, I was sought after by countless men. Some men smaller than you. Most larger. And I swore that the first one who could best me in battle, would win my hand.”

            Skogul was grinning. “And what of your heart, Thruda?”

            Thruda’s smile expanded. “My heart is reserved for what man or beast manages to rip it from my chest.”

            Roata arched one thin eyebrow. “It was a dragon, correct?”

            Thruda shot her a glance. “Might be, you mean. Someday.”

            “Not just one dragon,” said Skogul. “I don’t think just one dragon could do in Thruda the Barbarian.”

            Roata shrugged. “Maybe it was six. Could have even been ten.”

            Roderick exchanged glances with Van Pelt, who shrugged. Farmer tiptoed toward Roderick, sidling sideways as if ready to flee on a moment’s notice.

            “Uh, Roddy,” he hissed, “are you crazshy?!”

            Roderick shot him a disapproving glance. “You do not think I can take this woman? I have years of combat experience!”

            “Roddy, her shouldersh are broader than you are tall.”

“Oh, bah! They are no such thing!”

“And look at that mashe! It’sh more like an axshe with about sixshteen headsh than a mashe at all!”

            Roderick glanced at the heavy weapon that Thruda was now swinging idly with one hand. The sun glinted off its multiple blades, which pointed in every direction. He imagined those arms driving that weapon toward his head… He slid his own broadsword partially from its sheath and inspected the blade. It was one of his best swords, with a blade made of dwarven silver, the best imaginable weapon against werewolves. But the entire thing was only about three feet long.

            Thruda bashed her mace upon her shield like a gong, and the sound of it echoed through the canyon. “Do you accept the challenge, then? Will you face me to prove your worth? Or are you too much a coward?”

            Roderick drew his sword out the rest of the way and brandished it as impressively as he could muster. “Oh, I will face you alright…”

            “Good. Then brace yourself!”

            In two great strides, she was upon him, her mace held high and her shield still strapped to her back… apparently to give him a sporting chance. But when Roderick held his blade up to block, she kicked him in the stomach instead, sending him staggering back. She shook her head sadly as he regained his composure and twirled his sword again. Then he charged, taking a swipe at her midsection, which she easily dodged. With surprising speed, the hunter came back around for another, downward swing, which Thruda had to quickly jump backward to avoid. Roderick grinned.

As he watched the action, Van Pelt blinked in astonishment. “He actually thinks he’s doing well, doesn’t he?”

“She’sh jusht t-toying with him!” sputtered Farmer. “What should we do?”

“Watch,” said Slobby. “Unless you wanna get you brains knocked out too.”

Next Roderick drew back and thrust hard with his blade. This blow she blocked with her mace. He tried to prepare for another swing, but found he could no longer move his sword. When he looked, he saw the blade stuck between the axe-like heads of the Valkyrie’s vicious weapon. She smiled, and with a twist of her hand, he was disarmed. His sword flew through the air and landed with an echoing ring in the hard-packed dirt. He watched it fall, and then felt a sharp blow to his face as Thruda simply backhanded him with her free hand. Roderick was sent sprawling upon the ground.

            “Pitiful,” said Thruda, mostly with contempt but with perhaps a tinge of honest disappointment in her voice.

            Skogul spat into the dirt next to the hunter as he tried to get up. “Let’s leave them here,” she said.

            Kara nodded. “I second that.”

            “If you still would rather not simply kill them,” said Roata casually, “then yes, I agree. Leave them to rot in the Valley of Death.”

            “Then it is settled,” Thruda said, strapping her mace back to her belt. “You four hunters see that fork in the canyon ahead, yes? You will go right, and we will go left. No questions asked.”

            Roderick opened his mouth and promptly shut it again. Van Pelt and Farmer were nodding their agreement. Slobby was polishing one of his swords.

            The old man looked up. “’Sit my turn to fight now?”

            Bommlech Blackbeard was lost. These particular tunnels were unknown to him, and they were getting continuously darker, so he had to navigate mostly by smell and hearing. Still, he wasn’t worried. This was how he lived life: wandering with no direction and seeing where life led him. He kept his senses far more alert for either food or threat of battle (or rather, promise of battle) than he did for anything like navigational purposes.

            That was why he managed to detect the sound of movement just ahead of him, in a shadowy corner of the cave. It was very brief, and he wasn’t able to follow it, but he acted on instinct, taking a small axe from his belt and tossing it toward the source of the noise. It clanged off the rocks with no indication of hitting flesh, but he did hear what sounded like cloth as one of the shadows seemed to retreat. Bomm charged toward it and swung at the air with his massive battleaxe, just as he somehow sensed a shadow looming up behind him. He felt the touch of cold steel driving into the back of his neck at the very moment that he thrust backward with the butt end of his axe haft, slamming it into his unseen foe, who let out a satisfying hiss of pain.

            “Alright, ye flittin’ black faerie,” said the dwarf, spinning about and taking a wild swing at the shadows again, “come out an’ stick another frog-pricker in me skin. It bloody well tickles!”

            As he said this, he reached up and pulled the tiny stiletto out of his neck. It had pierced clean through, but only through the thick muscle on the side of his neck and not into his throat. He laughed and tossed it carelessly aside. His foe was breathing a little bit harder now, so a moment of listening revealed his position, and the dwarf quickly whirled about and tossed another throwing axe. It met, with a sharp, resounding clash, another dagger that had been flying straight toward him from the hand of the shadow. The two missiles ricocheted off one another and bounced back toward their throwers’ feet.

Now Bomm could see him standing in the dim light a little farther down the cave. It was a black-clad human, obviously of the skinny-but-spry type. They were always overconfident, and Bomm had easily killed many of them, so he doubted this one would give him trouble. Judging by what he saw, he estimated he could probably crack any bone in this shrimp’s body with a simple headbutt. Though he certainly had enough blades strapped all over his body… perhaps a headbutt might not be the best idea. He could not make out his facial features, for he wore a black cloth draped around his face, revealing only a pair of keen eyes set in pale skin.

            “Yes,” said the human, in a dry voice, as he carefully picked up the knife he’d thrown. “I am an assassin, as you can no doubt tell from my attire. I am called Nightknife.”

            For a moment, Nightknife considered adding his usual addendum about how easily he could kill the person he was speaking to with a mere flick of his wrist. But in the case of this dwarf it might take more than one flick, and he obviously wasn’t the type to appreciate such remarks anyway. Though the assassin had little doubt that he could kill this bumbling oaf easily, he did not want to enter into such a pointless fight.

            The dwarf spat. “So what the hell’s a skinny little rat like you doin’ ‘ere? You ain’t one o’ the Darkcliffs, that’s fer sure. They’d be usin’ yer limbs as toothpicks by now.”

            Nightknife ignored the insult. “I am on a job, as usual. You do not factor in, so I have no wish to fight you. So where are you headed?”

            Bomm shrugged. “Nowhere. So ye’re gonna off someone, eh? Well, I wouldn’t mind helpin’ ye with that.”

            “I work alone, dwarf. Besides, I doubt that you could handle this foe, or his friends… and even if you did, you would ruin my essential element of surprise.”

            “Got friends, does he? Well, ye could use me as a distraction then. I’ll be fightin’ ‘is friends while you come up behind ‘im an’ use that element o’ surprise, an’ all that.”

            Nightknife stared at the dwarf curiously. “You would do this? And what, pray tell, is in it for you? I do not plan to split my payment.”

            Bomm shrugged. “Ye can keep yer payment. I’ll just take me share o’ the loot, if there is any. If there ain’t, then me share o’ the action’ll do.”

            Nightknife considered this for a moment. The dwarf obviously had some skill in battle, as they had seemed almost evenly matched. The knife he’d thrust into the creature’s neck had not even slowed him, though the assassin’s aim may have been off since he’d been forced to stab blindly into a mass of filthy black hair. All in all, from what he’d seen, the dwarf would probably be more useful than all four of Roderick’s blockheaded werewolf hunters put together… and cheaper too.

            Behind his silky black mask, Nightknife smiled. “We have a deal.”

            With the four talkative mortal men no longer following close at their heels, the six Valkyrie had felt greatly more relaxed for a while. As they ventured deeper into the Valley of Death’s Shadow, however, they quickly began to feel more oppressed than ever. The great, sheer black walls rose up ominously on either side, taller than ever, and dotted with more of the strange nests in caves than before. They spoke in low voices, as if fearing that any sound in that place that was still as death would wake the dead to rise beneath their feet. And though the Valkyrie feared not the dead, the prospect was not an inviting one… for they were in Death’s territory now.

            “A strange dread steals over me when I look at those caves,” said Myst in nearly a whisper. “It’s as if a thousand invisible eyes were upon me…”

            “I feel it too,” said Gondul.

            Kara paused to look up at the cliffs. “They are ominous, but no more ominous than the rest of this place. Does anyone else feel cold? It’s been long since I have felt such a chill…”

            “Yes, I feel it also,” said Thruda. “It feels rather refreshing to me.”

            The others seemed to agree; none of them had drawn their feathered cloaks about them. Indeed, they seemed to have tossed them farther back. Kara suddenly had the strange realization that the cold made them feel more alive. Normally this would have seemed a good thing, but there was a catch: they were not supposed to be alive.

            Skogul nodded. “Aye, stop being so melancholy. What manner of attitude is that for a Valkyrie? If something be looking down at us from those alcoves, then we should welcome it! Come, FACE US!”

            Her voice echoed feebly off the walls of the gorge and then disappeared. The staring holes, like the thousand eyes of Argus, remained watchful but silent. Skogul shrugged.

            “See? Nothing.”

             “The cold doesn’t bother me,” said Myst. “I grew up in the far northern glaciers, if you recall. When out on the hunt, I faced cold far, far worse than this. But I also learned to be wary of my surroundings, to get a feel for when I was being watched. And I tell you…”

            She was interrupted by a scream from up ahead, and they saw Roata disappear into the ground. Running forward, Kara saw that she had stumbled into a series of deep cracks that split the canyon up ahead. Indeed, so split was the valley floor that it appeared now merely as a collection of oddly-shaped and sized pillars of stone, standing above a dark, bottomless pit, shadowed in impenetrable blackness. Kara quickly searched for sign of Roata and noticed her hands, with their two armored claws each, gripping the edge of one of the cracks.

            “Hang on!” Kara shouted as she ran to help.

            Myst was close on her heels, hopping over one of the dark cracks and onto the rocky protrusions. She leapt gracefully from one stone pillar to the next, until she was on the opposite side of the crack into which Roata had slipped. The archer Valkyrie was preparing an arrow with a rope attached when they heard a shout from Gondul.

            “They come!” she cried. “Look to the caves!”

            Thruda and Skogul reflexively drew their weapons as they looked upward at the caves that perforated the canyon walls. Out of each small hole now protruded a shining, black-armored neck, on the end of which was a vicious reptilian head with burning green eyes. The heads looked similar to a dragon’s, but with a single horn on the back and a more pointed, beak-like maw. The creatures at first merely seemed to be watching, but once they realized they had been noticed, each spread wide a pair of leathery wings, covering the edges of the canyon in shadow.

            “Wyverns!” shouted Skogul.

            Then, all at once, they came swooping in. Skogul and Thruda quickly ran to either side of Kara to defend her as she helped Roata. Myst loosed an arrow and Gondul tossed a javelin, both of which claimed a foe. The archer managed to pull off two more shots before the creatures were upon them. They attacked in low swoops, grasping with their claws and snapping with their sharp-toothed, beak-like maws. The first of them came straight for Skogul and Thruda, trying to reach the two helpless Valkyrie they guarded. The first one received a pair of deep cuts across the belly, spilling guts and gore onto the ground and the attacking Valkyrie before plunging into the pit with hardly a cry. The next one came from the opposite direction, and Thruda simply reached up and bashed its face in with her heavy mace. It fell with a skidding thud onto the ground beside them.

            Now the wheeling beasts, screeching and roaring, began to shift direction. Gondul saw they were now watching Myst and quickly moved to aid her. Myst notched three arrows at once and let them fly into the flock of wyverns, felling two of the beasts, and then she quickly slung her bow over her shoulder and drew her sword… just as the beasts met her. She cut the first one’s throat in two quick swings, the second one rewarded with a gush of dark blood and the thud of a body. The second one received another of Gondul’s javelins in its chest, causing it to swerve and fly off in pain.

            By this point Kara had restored Roata to her feet, and the four of them moved to help Myst before she became overwhelmed. Gondul bridged the chasm before them, however, and she was followed by four of the wyverns, which swooped down and interposed themselves between the four Valkyrie and the two they had chosen as prey, spreading their wings like a wall and snarling fiercely. They were on the other side of the pit and guarding the edge, so the Valkyrie had no way to leap across. They were about to move to a shorter jump off to the side when they heard Roata chanting something, her voice rapidly growing louder and… changing.

            When she looked up, the raven Valkyrie’s eyes were glowing bright indigo, and her hair was waving slightly, though there was no wind. Now she lifted her scepter at the end of an outstretched arm and cried with a devilish screech: Alkyriosith SAH! There was a flash of green light, and suddenly, though nothing flew from the end of her staff, a noxious green fluid suddenly appeared to splatter across the skin of the wyverns, boiling and burning, trailing smoke from the wounds. The creatures cried out in anguish and stumbled in all directions, enabling the Valkyrie to make the jump across.

            They jumped one by one, Kara going first and beheading one of the guardian wyverns in a single flash of her blade. The others followed, but then quickly saw that they were too late. Right before their eyes, one of the largest of the great black wyverns came at Myst from behind as she was finishing another foe, and its terrible claws closed in on her fair shoulders. She screamed in terror as she was lifted bodily from the ground and born away into the sky. Skogul screamed an angry war cry and ran toward the ledge as if she could take flight and follow her, though of course she could not. Roata swung her scepter back up and pointed it toward the retreating wyvern with its prisoner. Her lips moved, though it was still the otherworldly voice that spoke the words: Krili-

            She was cut short by Kara grabbing her arm and pulling it down, shouting, “No! You’ll make it drop her!”

            Roata cried out in pain and staggered backward, clutching the arm Kara had grabbed as if she had injured it. Kara gasped in astonishment as she looked at the other Valkyrie’s skin, which had turned pale grey up the afflicted arm.

Most of the wyverns were retreating now. Acting quickly, Skogul suddenly ran forward and grabbed one of the beasts by the legs, clutching on tight, even as its slashing talons cut her skin. As they rose steadily higher, She climbed up onto the creature’s back, throwing herself forward and wrapping her arms around its neck. It screeched loudly, turning several midair rolls in an attempt to throw her off, but she simply grasped its sides with her legs and hung on tighter. Desperately freeing one hand, she drew one of her swords and pressed it against the creature’s neck. This caught its attention. It quickly righted itself and continued following the one carrying Myst.

Her attention divided between the fleeing wyverns and the injured Roata, whom she was clutching in her arms, Kara quickly shouted, “Where are they going? What’s she going to do? What’s wrong with your arm? What did I do?”

Between clenched teeth, Roata hissed, “Will you be silent? You just interrupted my spell. I’m trying to think.”

She pushed Kara away. Kara looked crestfallen for a moment, and then she began turning in circles, trying to figure out a plan. Thruda quickly grabbed her.

“Be still, girl, before you tumble into the gorge,” she said. “You’re doing no one any good without a level head on your shoulders.”

“Well, what are you doing?!”

            “I’m trying to help them! I’ve been trying to take to my wings, but…”

            Just then they were interrupted by the powerful, demonic-sounding voice once again issuing from Roata’s lips. She had her scepter pressed against the skin of one of the dead wyverns and was running her clawed fingers down from her forehead, tracing a line over her face, down her neck, over her chest, chanting all the while. First they noticed her armor beginning to meld with her skin, which was rapidly turning grey, then black. A leathery web began to extend itself between her fingers, the claws of which were growing much, much longer…

            Then they heard Gondul shout, “No!”

            The two Valkyrie quickly whirled about once again to see the great black wyvern, far in the distance, drop the silvery form of Myst onto a high outcropping of the craggy ledge. Once she was down, the wyverns dove in, rending and tearing with their jagged maws. Even at this distance, they could see the pristine white, downy feathers of Myst’s cloak go flying. It was a terrible sight to behold, made worse by the echoing screams of pain from the Valkyrie, followed quickly by the cries of most of her sisters.

            All except Roata, who had now almost completely transformed. The three Valkyrie who stood helplessly watching the spectacle then saw a rather thin and wiry black wyvern fly over their heads from behind. Its true identity was only revealed by the few remaining traces of Roata’s old form: her long black braid of hair, her black feathered cloak… but even these soon faded from sight as she continued flying toward the ledge.

Meanwhile, Skogul was already there. She had beheaded her mount once it landed and was now fighting the other monsters, trying to make her way toward the ones still feasting among a cloud of sad white feathers. Her entire body matted with the blood of her foes, she fought her way from one to the next, injuring each just enough to clear a path, and then moving on, ignoring her own wounds. She quickly realized she was surrounded when the entire flock that had been feasting suddenly turned to face her, feathers and even bits of snowy hair now hanging in their filthy beaks.

Determined not to go down without a fight, even if it meant dying a second time, the Valkyrie brandished her swords and dropped into a defensive stance. She might have been torn apart on the spot had not another wyvern swooped in and begun attacking its own kind, biting and snapping at the pack, drawing most of their attention. This distraction gave Skogul just the window of opportunity she needed for a vicious, double-bladed backstab. Her victim did not even get a chance to scream.

Meanwhile, the three Valkyrie on the canyon floor helplessly watched. Kara was looking away from the battle occasionally as if a solution might suddenly appear nearby, but the other two merely looked on in silence.

“May my father protect them…” Thruda muttered.

“In case you didn’t notice,” Kara scoffed angrily, “the gods don’t seem to have much power here! We are their instruments, and we’re on our own!”

“Do not speak against the gods, Kara!” the larger Valkyrie shouted back, standing even taller. “I care not how angry you are!”

Gondul quickly glanced back at them with such a look of scathing disapproval, mingled with disappointment, clearly visible in her large eyes, that they immediately dropped the argument and turned back to the fight above.

 Most of the wyverns appeared to be fleeing. They could just make out Skogul on the ledge, covered in blood, brandishing her blades and screaming a terrible war cry that seemed to almost shake the canyon as it echoed away into the distance. Meanwhile, directly in front of her, two of the wyverns were tangling in midair, biting at each other’s neck, their wings beating one another madly. They recognized one of them as the wyvern that had captured Myst in the first place, so the other had to be Roata. Just then, she took a terrible slash across the chest from the talons of her foe, but returned with a far more deadly bite to its neck, ripping out its jugular. As her foe tumbled downward along with its spurting lifeblood, Roata turned back to the ledge above and began feebly flapping toward it, even as her wings grew shorter…

“She’s shifting back!” Kara screamed.

They saw Skogul run forward and jump without hesitation down quite a distance to a lower ledge. Then she reached out to one of Roata’s wingtips as it came close enough to grab. She held on tight as the massive weight of the shrinking beast fell flat against the canyon wall, clinging on with its shortening claws. Then, as it began to retake the slender form of Roata, clad in her black and silver armor, the three retreating wyverns turned about to make one last pass at this apparently helpless foe. The first was struck by a beam of dim blue light from Roata’s fingertips, which seemed to stun it in midair, and it quickly began to fall. The second, to the amazement of all who witnessed it, was pierced through the chest by a javelin somehow hurtled accurately over that entire vast distance by Thruda’s powerful arm. Skogul happened to pull Roata up out of the way just in time to avoid the clamping jaws of the third attacker, which then gave up on the entire idea and began flapping off to the other side of the canyon.

Then, with astonishing suddenness, all fell silent. The only sounds that could be heard were a strange stretching noise coming from Gondul’s shield as the back of it apparently “grew” new throwing spears for her. Kara looked almost offended at Gondul for interrupting the mournful stillness. Then she sank to her knees. Gondul and Thruda closed their eyes and lowered their heads.

In a hoarse voice, Thruda muttered, “Those creatures… They shouldn’t have even been able to even cut us…”

“The valley is making us mortal,” Gondul whispered, “but I do not think it could have affected us enough to make Myst able to…”

“How can you know?!” Kara choked out. “You don’t know anything!”

Thruda looked ready to reproach Kara for this remark, but appeared to lose interest and merely shook her head sadly. Gondul too looked away, back up at their remaining sisters. Skogul was running about on the ledge now, looking for a way back up to the outcropping above where Myst had been taken. Roata was nowhere to be seen, but they had seen Skogul pull her back up. She must have been unable to move.

Suddenly Thruda’s voice, as powerful as ever, boomed across the distance. “Skogul! Can you find a way up?”

The blood-red Valkyrie turned back and looked down at the three of them in the crack-riddled canyon floor so far below. “No! I’m looking!”

Thruda paused a moment, and then asked, “Can you find a way DOWN?”

Skogul paused, then screamed, “I’m not coming down without her!”

“Then we will wait for you,” Thruda shouted back, though her voice was so strong that her words, though loud, hardly sounded in tone as if she were shouting.

They were, however, still cut off by the sound that followed. With a great rumbling roar, the earth began to shake.

“Does it ever stop?!” Kara screamed, as they all crouched lower and steadied themselves.

Then came the crashing from all around, as the pillars of stone on which they stood in the great black pit began to give way and crumble, one after another. The Valkyrie quickly leapt to their feet as the platform on which they stood began to shift as well. Leaping from one patch of ground to the next, some buckling under their feet even as they ran, they made their way toward the opposite side, where solid earth could once again be seen. This time, none of them slipped and fell and had to be helped; they all successfully made it across… as the crashing slowed to a stop. When they turned about, they saw that the bottomless pit behind them still appeared bottomless, despite the fact that they could hear the echoes of the falling stones clattering to a stop.

“It shouldn’t look that dark down there,” Kara said. “There’s light all around…”

“Magic,” said Gondul.

Thruda nodded. “Aye, the necromancers. They can create enchanted lanterns and stones that emit darkness as if it were light, drowning the illumination around them. They must have done that to this pit. I wonder if it’s even bottomless at all!”

 None of them offered to risk trying to find out. The ledge on which Skogul stood was now so far in the distance that they could barely make it out, especially with all of the dust in the air. The three Valkyrie exchanged glances. Luckily, none of them were hurt, though all of them were sore, bloodied, and physically and emotionally exhausted. They sat there on the ground in stony silence for some time, before Gondul surprisingly broke it.

In a grim and solemn voice, she slowly said, “I have never before felt so… alive.”

Kara shook her head. “We should never have come to this place…”

Thruda shot her a disapproving look. “We are doing our duty, Valkyrie. Think not of yourself, but of those great warriors whose spirits lay trapped in tiny stones at the bidding of the necromancers… without even a chance to fight back.”

Kara nodded as she again rose to her feet. The other two Valkyrie followed.

“So what now?” she said.

“We have no way to contact Skogul and the others at the moment, and no way to turn back… so we head east, toward the necromancers. What else?”

 Gondul stared off with her wolf-like eyes into the fog ahead of them and slipped her shield with its row of magic javelins back over her back. “Such is the way evil seems to travel. East… always, into the east.”