CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The hall had cleared out except for Stieg, Erin, and the dark elf princess.
“They will not let you go,” she continued on, ignoring the shared moment between Stieg and Erin. “Even now, their troops are gathering to strike us all down. You have only faced their guards. Their soldiers are a different thing all together.”
“Look,” Erin explained, “we have a world to save, so—”
“What do you want, Crow?”
“Want?”
The Svartalfheim princess tossed back her head, long blue-black hair flipping over her shoulder. “Don’t play games with me, human. Every Crow wants something.”
“We need transport. Fast transport. Horses or something equivalent.”
“To get back to Midgard, where you belong?”
“To get to Corpse Shore.”
The She-elf’s eyes widened. “And they thought I was insane all that time. Why would you go there? Nidhogg will not welcome you, Crow.”
“It’s my only option.”
“Then you have no option at all. But . . . it’s a deal I will make. Help me get out of here alive and I will see that you have what you need so you can die a violent and bloody death that you most likely deserve at the claws and fangs of Nidhogg.”
“And thanks for that!” Erin laughingly replied, in her best one day I plan to kill you but right now I’m pretending we’re best of friends! Betty imitation. It was kind of brilliant. Definitely entertaining.
Erin faced Stieg, her fake smile dropping, her laugh abruptly ending. She didn’t need to fake any of that with him, which he appreciated. “You all right?”
Stieg blinked, once again surprised by the question. “Am I bleeding?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Ooooo. . . kay.”
“Just answer the fucking question!”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure you’re up for this?”
“What’s happening right now? I don’t know what’s happening!”
“I’m bothering to care,” she snapped. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Oh. Okay. Well . . . thank you for that. Uh . . . and I’m fine. I was just waiting for you to make your move.”
“How did you know I actually had a move?”
“Because you’re a Crow,” the dark elf cut in with a nasty sneer. “Once I knew what you were, I knew my revenge would be written in the blood of my enemies in the annals of history.”
Erin glanced at Stieg but what did she expect him to say? What was there to say to any of that?
“Look, lady,” Erin began, “I’m a Crow, but that doesn’t mean I’m any worse or—”
Erin suddenly grabbed the princess by her arm and pushed her toward Stieg. He automatically moved her behind him, using his body to protect her, while Erin used her nondominant hand and caught the arrow that had been flying toward them.
Annoyed, because Erin was in the middle of talking and she hated being interrupted, she used her other hand to unleash a line of flame that turned the archer elves into screaming balls of fire, tearing down the hallway and disappearing into the castle.
“—or better,” she continued on, “than any other warrior.”
Princess Seanait pushed past Stieg and Erin with a, “Yes, yes, I see that. Now, do you mind if we get my bloody revenge underway?”
“She’s so pushy,” Erin complained to Stieg once the dark elf was already across the room.
“What do you expect? She’s a princess.”
“So? I’m from Staten Island.”
Stieg shook his head. “I really don’t know how to respond to that.”
* * *
The uppity dark elf princess had been right. The guards had moved back and the troops had moved in, but they didn’t attack right away. They could be heard down a long hallway, waiting around the corner.
“You need weapons, Raven,” the princess told Stieg.
“I’ll get some.”
“When? When our souls have left our bodies?”
“Up-itty,” Erin muttered.
“We’ll get you out of here,” Stieg promised. “It’s what we do.”
“It’s what Ravens do,” Erin clarified. “Crows just kill everyone in our way. So make sure you watch where you step.”
Stieg’s big hand covered Erin’s entire face. “She’s just kidding,” he said while he pushed her back. “We’ll take the lead.” He pulled his hand away from a giggling Erin and softly warned her, “Stop fooling around.”
“I can’t help myself. She brings it out in me.”
“We have bigger issues right now than your love of fucking with people.”
Stieg was right. Getting out of the castle would be tough and even getting out of elf territory basically impossible, but their friends were still depending on them.
“You’re right. Let’s go.”
He started to turn away, but stopped and looked back at her.
“What?” Erin asked, thinking something was wrong.
Stieg leaned in and kissed her.
She immediately responded, her arms looping around his neck, the blades still held in her hands. She didn’t realize until that very moment how worried about him she’d been. Kissing him, feeling his body against hers, knowing he was—at least at the moment—alive and safe meant more to her than she’d thought anything could.
So lost in that kiss, Erin didn’t appreciate in any way the dark elf princess leaning in and growling, “Are you two camp whores done?”
When Stieg pulled away and saw the tip of Erin’s blade pressed against the royal’s throat—right by that big artery too—he chuckled and gently chastised, “Erin.”
* * *
Stieg came around the corner and grabbed the first two elves who charged. He smashed one’s head into the stone wall until he’d bashed his brains in. The other he choked at the same time until his eyes bulged from his head and blood poured from his pointed ears.
The shock of the elves’ comrades wore off quickly and their leader yelled for an attack.
Stieg ignored the command and bent down to retrieve the swords the men still had clutched in their hands. Before he could stand, he felt the air shift as Erin leaped over his back, her blade slashing, cutting through an elf’s head before he could even raise his weapon.
She spun away, stabbed another elf in the heart; spun back and as she moved into a crouch, disemboweled a red-haired elf.
His entrails slithered out of his body and across Erin’s arm, landing on the floor.
Stieg slashed the sword one way, cutting an elf from his shoulder to his opposite hip. The other sword he swung back and up, taking the head of another soldier.
As Princess Uathach’s troops pushed forward, Princess Seanait came around that corner. She held a sword in one hand and a dwarf-made axe in the other that she’d pulled down from the wall. With a scream that still made her sound completely mad, she charged into the fray, slashing, hacking, and dismembering her way through. In the tight hallway, the floors became slippery with blood, which both Erin and Seanait used to their benefit.
Seanait slid under legs, castrating her enemy’s troops as she slipped by. Erin avoided weapon attacks by dropping into splits and attacking from below. Her blades left a string of swiftly killed elves who probably never felt a thing until they hit the ground.
Stieg did what he could to clear the way until he reached the back door Seanait pointed out to them.
He started to go through, but Erin caught his arm and pulled him back. She handed her blood-drenched blades to him so that her hands were free. Placing her palms together, she closed her eyes. Small flames popped between her fingers and when she pulled her hands back, she held a large ball of flame that grew bigger by the second.
Stieg put his arms around Princess Seanait, turning them both away. Erin unleashed that flame and he felt the heat as it exploded that part of the building. Heard the screams of the elf troops on the other side of the wall, burning to death or getting crushed under an avalanche of stone and marble.
He released the dark elf and watched her expression change from fascination to horror. It was the expression people got when they realized that some little redhead had taken out half a castle building with her flame. That was power.
“Are you a witch?” Seanait asked Erin in awe.
“No. But Skuld did tell me I was saucy.”
* * *
They worked their way through the remains of the castle wall. Bodies, weapons, and shields littered the courtyard. Some elves were crushed by falling stones. Others were still smoldering.
Still, there were more troops to contend with. Archers, specifically. They stood on the western battlements with their bows aiming down.
“How fast are you?” Erin asked Princess Seanait.
“You’ve seen.”
“Good.” She glanced at Stieg. “Then run.” She slammed her foot against the edge of a shield. It flipped up and she snatched it out of the air before crouching down and using it to shield her body as arrows rained down on them from above.
A few feet away, Stieg’s shield barely hid his much-bigger-than-an-elf body.
More elves ran out on the east side of the battlements, arrows already nocked.
“Shit.” Erin moved so her back was to Stieg’s and her shield protected them from the east, his from the west. But they couldn’t keep this up for long.
“Flame?” Stieg called out.
“Not without exposing an artery.”
“Shit.”
Erin was thinking they might have to take a chance and unleash their wings, but she didn’t know how they would do that and not get shot down. Before she could do something rash and stupid, the rain of arrows slowly came to a stop.
Erin peeked over the top of her round shield and saw the archers staring down. At first, she believed them to be staring at her and Stieg. But they weren’t. She looked over her shoulder. Dualtach stood in the rubble, his gaze examining everything.
“We’re fucked,” Stieg muttered.
He might be right. It was one thing to not like Princess Uathach, but quite another to betray your own kind. Although Erin had never felt like part of anything until she’d joined the Crows, she was still risking all to protect the human race, despite the fact that she found most people pretty goddamn ridiculous.
Dualtach focused on a spot in front of Erin.
She moved the shield enough to see what he was looking at. She sniffed. Oil. There was a puddle of oil in front of her. A puddle that came from . . .
Her gaze moved up until it reached the base of the east battlements where the elves stood. And there, with a hole in the bottom from a piece of flying stone, stood a barrel of oil.
“Get ready,” she warned Stieg before flicking the finger of her right hand and sending a tiny spark at the puddle. It hit the mark, flame swirled in the oil, and moving fast, tore back toward the barrel.
The elves stared only a moment before they made a crazed run for it.
The fire hit the barrel and Erin screamed at Stieg, “Go!”
They kept their shields up because the archers on the west side began firing again, but when they neared the north battlements, Erin and Stieg unleashed their wings and took to the air just as the casket exploded. The power of it sent them spinning over the west battlements and out into the surrounding forest.
The blast was so strong, Erin didn’t know if she was right side up or not. She didn’t know anything, couldn’t do anything but go with it.
She hit the ground and rolled down a small hill until she slammed into something strong enough to stop her.
Panting, Erin flopped to her back and ended up staring into fangs the size of her feet. “Oh, shit, we’re back in Jotunheim.” She sighed, despairing that she’d never get away from goddamn giants.
The thing above her roared and Erin punched it. Just on principle. She’d been through a lot.
It whimpered and took several steps back.
“Oy!” a deep voice snapped. “Watch your hands.”
Erin turned over onto her stomach, placed her hands down, and pushed herself up. She could see what was standing so close to her.
Turned out it was an entire army.
“Oh . . . shit.”
* * *
Stieg heard a roar and snapped awake; he’d been briefly knocked out when he’d landed on the ground. Worried about Erin, he stood, fell, and stood again. It was not pretty or graceful, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
Finally steady, he blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t seeing a thousand of everything. He had that happen once when he drank that expensive tequila at Kera’s welcome party. Only then it was thousands of Valkyries in bikinis and it was perfect.
What he saw now, however, was not that. Sadly.
But to be honest, he was fucking fed up and probably had a concussion, which led him to do something very Viking. Using the one sword he still had, he cleared off the arrow shafts littering his shield, opened his arms wide in challenge, and bellowed, “You wanna fight? Then come on!”
He felt a tap on his arm and turned to see Erin gazing up at him.
“Whatcha doin’, buckshot?” she asked.
“Dying with honor?”
“Or we can hold off on that until we have, like, no other options?”
Stieg’s head hurt so all he could ask was “Options?”
“Like negotiations?”
“Oh. Yeah, okay.”
“I thought you’d already negotiated,” a deep voice boomed.
Stieg winced. “Mind lowering that voice, dude?”
“With them?” the male elf demanded, dismounting from his catlike beast. “You negotiated with them?”
“It’s been centuries, you old bastard. It’s not like I had a choice,” Princess Seanait snapped.
“Don’t bark at me, evil demon child!”
“You left me there!”
“They said they’d kill you if I didn’t!”
“You’re here now!”
“I was told to be here! But now I wish I’d ignored the message!”
“Hey!” Erin roared. “Do you mind?” She dug her hand into Stieg’s hair and tugged until he put his head on her shoulder. “His head hurts. Think we can take it down a notch?”
The elf male sneered. “I can’t believe you made a deal with a human, Seanait.”
“Not a human,” she smirked. “A Crow.”
Stieg jumped when the troops suddenly lowered their spears and went into combat positions.
“Okay,” Erin said, her smile so wide Stieg could feel it against the top of his head. “I need to know what those other Crows did when they came here to cause this reaction. ’Cause I gotta tell ya . . . I’m lovin’ it!”
“She saved my life, old bastard, and I promised I’d get her and her Raven lover out of here.”
“And a Raven?” the dark elf male whined.
She snarled. He snarled back.
“I’m guessing this is your father,” Erin said.
“What do you think?”
“I am King Tiarnach of the Svartalfheim,” the dark elf said.
“And I am in your”—he sucked his tongue against his fangs in obvious disgust—“debt for saving my daughter.”
“It was our pleasure,” Erin lied.
“Now we must go inside this castle, kill everyone, then roast and eat the remains of Princess Uathach, our vanquished enemy.”
Stieg’s head snapped up at those words, but Erin quickly pulled him back down, stroking his hair.
“No,” she told Stieg. “This is not our issue. We have other issues.”
“Would you like to join us?” the king offered. He turned to Stieg. “You’re a Viking and she’s a Crow. “There will be much raping and pillaging. Enough for everyone.”
Erin’s hand slapped over Stieg’s mouth before he could say a word.
“As appealing as that offer is to a female of any species,” and Stieg could hear the barely controlled anger in her voice, “King Tiarnach, we must respectfully decline.”
He shrugged big shoulders. “There will be boys there for you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Erin made a strange little squeak in the back of her throat. A sound Stieg didn’t think he’d ever heard her make before.
“I really need to go,” Erin told Princess Seanait. “Now.”
The princess motioned to the troops and a minute later an elf walked forward with two large creatures already saddled and ready for travel. “Food and water are already attached to the saddles.”
Erin pointed at the animals. “What the fuck are those things?”
“You said you needed transport.”
“I was thinking horses.”
The princess, the king, and the troops laughed.
The king finally said, “Silly little Crow. Ride horses? We eat them.”
“Unless you mean centaurs,” the princess suggested. “But we eat them, too.”
“Okay,” Erin said, wiping one hand against another before throwing them up in the air. “I’m out.” She walked over to one of the animals. It was enormous, with giant fangs. And didn’t appear remotely friendly.
Even worse, Erin didn’t really get along with cats. A few times stray cats on the street had actively stalked her as if they’d recognized the bird within.
She leaned close and said to the black-furred beast, “Don’t give me any shit, and you and I will do just fine.”
“Wait,” Princess Seanait called out. She held her hand out to her father and snapped her fingers. When her father did nothing but stare at her, she lifted her hand until it was right under his nose. “Give it to me, old bastard,” she snarled.
“I should have drowned you at birth like your mother told me to.”
“Which was one of the reasons I cut off her head. Now give it to me.”
“They don’t need it.”
“And if they stray into your brother’s territory?”
With a surprisingly dramatic sigh, he reached under his armor and yanked off a chain, slapping the necklace into his daughter’s hand.
She gave it to Stieg. “If anyone questions you before you get to the dwarves, show them this. It should protect you.”
“Thank you, Princess Seanait. King Tiarnach.”
“Good luck,” the king said, turning back to his travel beast.
“You’ll need it,” Seanait muttered before mounting her own animal.
Stieg grabbed the reins of one of the animals and he walked with Erin into the woods. They heard the troops marching toward Princess Uathach and her subjects, but they didn’t turn around or try to intervene.
Stieg didn’t get involved because he knew there was nothing to be done except risk their lives, which they were already doing too much of as it was.
And Erin didn’t intervene because she didn’t like any of the parties involved and she was probably hoping they’d wipe each other out.
He didn’t really blame her, though. These elves were assholes.
Erin abruptly stopped and Stieg heard her talking to someone. He went around to the other side of the animal and found her talking to the witch.
Dualtach handed over the Key and the map. “I knew you could hide the weapons, but not the hand. If they saw the hand, they would have found the map and everything else.”
“No problem.” Erin tied the Key to her saddle and returned the map to her back pocket. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. King Tiarnach would never risk killing a witch.” He grinned. “It brings bad luck.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“And thank you for making things entertaining.”
Erin again grabbed the reins and led her beast toward a clearing, but before, she got too far, Dualtach called out, “One more thing, Crow.”
She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder.
“For a human, you’ve been . . . I won’t say smart, but crafty. If I were you, I’d keep that up.”
Erin gave a nod and moved on, Stieg right behind her.
When he was close, he said, “Ever notice that even their praise still manages to be insulting?”
“It’s like dealing with that aunt at Thanksgiving who really doesn’t like you, but doesn’t want your mother to notice, so everything she says is passive aggressive.” Reaching the clearing, Erin stopped. “All I can say is that if I had the power, I would set Alfheim and Svartalfheim on fire and let the whole motherfucking thing burn.”
“Erin?”
“Yeah?”
“You will never be the passive-aggressive aunt.”
“Oh, no. I’d be the fully aggressive aunt.”