Valkyrie's Shadow

Winter's Crown: Act 2, Chapter 8

Winter's Crown: Act 2, Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Two of the Vampire Brides watched with looks of grave concern as Hejinmal hurled himself from the wall, flapping frantically even as he angled down alarmingly towards the lake in the middle of the Demihuman Quarter. Demihumans scurried about in mass panic as he skimmed over the ground like some sort of gigantic sausage with wings.

“Does he always take off like this?” Ilyshn’ish muttered absently.

“No,” the Vampire Bride beside her replied, “Lady Aura was here the last time to provide assistance.”

Another Lady? There certainly seemed to be many people with titles here. Hejinmal managed to level out just before diving into the surface of the water, huffing his way out of the bowl and over the city walls.

“Weren’t you supposed to be helping him?” The Vampire Bride asked, “What if he had crashed?”

“Then it would’ve been quite amusing,” Ilyshn’ish answered.

“It would have been a debacle!” The Vampire Bride placed her hands on her hips as she looked up at Ilyshn’ish with a cross expression, “We need to maintain a spotless image, or Lady Shalltear will be furious. She expects no delays, no collateral damage and a low workplace incident rate.”

“Doesn’t the other night count as an ‘incident?’”

“I said ‘low.’”

Ilyshn’ish turned her head and glowered down at the Vampire Bride, who did not react, as usual. The third Vampire Bride joined them, taking notes on her clipboard.

“Well, he didn’t crash – so that’s that,” Ilyshn’ish said. “He won’t be able to hunt for anything with that body of his either unless something just happens to fly straight into his mouth.”

“With a Ring of Sustenance, there should be no problems.”

“Hmph,” Ilyshn’ish sent a puff of shimmering ice crystals into the air. “In that case, he can just not eat until he sheds all that extra weight. Then I won’t have to waste my magic on him.”

“Don’t feed…the…fat one,” the third Vampire Bride murmured as she continued taking notes.

“Anyways,” Ilyshn’ish said, “I guess I should see where Hejinmal has disappeared to – maybe I’ll find him passed out in a field nearby.”

She shuffled up to the edge of the wall. With a single, powerful stroke, she launched herself into the sky, sending clouds of frost and dust swirling everywhere.

“Have a safe journey,” the Vampire Brides’ voice drifted up after her.

She glanced back towards the wall with one eye: the three Vampire Brides were staring up at her with expressionless faces.

Ilyshn’ish made two large circuits over the city walls, using the currents of air rising off of the sunbaked streets to lift her effortlessly to greater heights. A multitude of figures milled about below for purposes she could not discern: Humans and Demihumans of many shapes and sizes moving in nonsensical patterns from place to place. There appeared to be two roads leading out from the city to the south and the north, branching out over vast stretches of rolling fields and forested hills.

Satisfied that she had reached a suitable altitude to begin the journey back north, Ilyshn’ish altered her course and scanned the surroundings for Hejinmal. A vexed sound escaped her when she discovered his rotund profile far below, not very far from the city walls. She shed her precious altitude again, diving down and circling him several times before settling alongside her brother.

“Hejinmal, what are you doing?”

“I’m…uh…flying?”

Ilyshn’ish looked down: they couldn’t have been more than ten metres off of the ground. It was close enough that she could pick up every stone and stem below with her Blindsight. A group of six humanoids gaped up at them as the two Frost Dragons slowly drifted by overhead.

“Three of those things we just flew over had bows,” Ilyshn’ish glanced back at them. “What are you doing flying so low? If you fly over a glacier-like this later, something is going to jump out of the ice and snatch you out of the air like the fatty snack that you are.”

“I’m trying!” Hejinmal cried out pathetically.

“What is there to ‘try’ about it?” Ilyshn’ish furrowed her brow, “You could have just used the air currents over the city to–bah, never mind.”

Looking over his corpulent figure again, Ilyshn’ish decided that Hejinmal was too massive to glide properly. How he had managed to make the trip up to Feoh Berkana alone days ago without being eaten or captured was beyond her ability to imagine.

“I’m surprised you managed to survive the last trip up there.”

“Lady Aura…helped me,” he huffed out. “Magic. Can…can you, haah…haah…”

The pitiful sight disturbed her. How could it be that they were siblings?

“Just hold on,” she told him, “I’ll figure something out.”

While Ilyshn’ish had used magic to attack others, she had only ever used beneficial enchantments for herself. Well, it shouldn’t be that much different…probably. Pointedly ignoring the laboured breathing of her brother beside her, she started to sing a soft song. The notes of the gentle melody swirled with the sweet sound of her voice in the air around them as she wove her magic. As the enchantment settled about them, Hejinmal picked up speed and steadily gained altitude.

“This is amazing, sister!” He said excitedly, “How long have you been able to do this for?”

“Who knows?” She replied noncommittally, “We need to be above the peaks before we get to them, so don’t stop climbing.”

“Er...really? I didn’t do that on the way north last time – shouldn’t it be easier to go through the valleys?”

“Seriously…how are you still alive? Every Frost Giant for the hundreds of kilometres along the way must have been sleeping or something.”

Hejinmal quickly ascended after her sarcastic reply. A few hours later, they were crossing high over the foothills into the mountains proper.

“You have a beautiful voice, sister,” Hejinmal suddenly said without prompting.

“You’re being creepy again, brother,” Ilyshn’ish frowned.

“I mean it! I really do…”

She shot her brother an annoyed look, and he cringed away.

“I’ve happened to overhear several of those Human Bards around the city while wandering along the walls,” he continued after a short silence. “They...they don’t sound like that.”

“They don’t?”

“No, I mean they do, but…”

“Make up your mind, brother.”

Hejinmal appeared to give his words some thought. They flew onwards for several kilometres before he cleared his throat to try again.

“When they are performing regularly, in the town plazas and noble gardens, their music sounds like what I suppose Humans consider proper music. When they are using music to weave magic for whatever other work they’re doing, however, it doesn’t – it’s a disjointed, chaotic, mess that you can only get bits and pieces out of. It sends shivers up my spine, really…it’s like something is wrong, and I can feel it: but I don’t know why.”

With most of her time in the city being stuck in her pen trying to recover from Lady Shalltear, she hadn’t had the opportunity to explore at all. With her injuries past her, Hejinmal’s words sparked curiosity over the new places that she could visit.

“I guess I’ll have to check the next time we’re back there…so you’re saying that it doesn’t sound like that when I weave magic through song?”

“Yes, exactly – when you performed that spellsong just now, I think I just heard it the way it was. It had Dwarven lyrics, with a proper melody and everything. If it was a Human Bard from the city, it would have probably sounded like a bizarre and jarring series of incomprehensible noises.”

“It’s probably because they are not Dragons,” Ilyshn’ish said. “Many races do not understand magic in the same manner as we – neither do they perceive the world by the same measures. You’ve been around that city for longer than I: there is no beauty or comprehension in its form – only the transient marks of toil and struggle in their brief lives, as countless fleeting wills pull in countless different directions. All of their efforts will crumble to dust as their histories tell, and even those histories will crumble away. Only we will remain to remember that they ever even existed.”

“That smug, twisted view is entirely mother,” Hejinmal remarked.

“It’s not as if you haven’t seen the Quagoa,” Ilyshn’ish countered. “All these mortals are the same: all that ever changes are their teeming numbers as they struggle in short-lived futility and perish. They have no appreciation for the world in its entirety – only the meagre fragment of it that is dangled before them. In being aware of that tiny fragment, they become confident that they understand the entire world. We Frost Dragons remember everything we experience and may develop a great degree of understanding through the ages, but even we would never become so arrogant as to believe such a thing.”

“Okay, that part is decidedly not mother,” Hejinmal admitted. “Still, it is not mortals that rule the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“You mean those Undead? I’ll admit a few of the things there are quite powerful, but they are much the same as mortals when it comes to their view of the greater scheme of things. It will take more than a dusty old Lich with delusions of grandeur to convince me otherwise…though perhaps with this Dragon Lord that leads them, there may be some promising things to come.”

The steady beat of Hejinmal’s wings faltered, and he turned to look at her strangely.

“What?”

“Why would you think Ainz Ooal Gown is a Dragon Lord?”

“…I’m going to kill you, brother,” Ilyshn’ish sang sweetly.

Hejinmal’s enchantment shattered, and he started to lose momentum.

“W-why!”

“Who else would you think that I would think could kill father so easily?” She fumed, “I even asked you!”

“You asked if he was a male!”

“You were withholding some pretty important details there, brother! These are your future nieces and nephews in here!”

“What! Why are you bringing them into this? It’s not as if anything would change if you knew!”

“Argh! What am I going to do now? Time waits for no clutch, Hejinmal!”

They flew on in silence for a few minutes, as Hejinmal struggled vainly to maintain their pace.

“I have to leave, brother,” she finally said.

“Leave? B-but…where?”

“North, over the sea to the frozen places far beyond. If I find a few good currents of wind, someone will latch onto my scent. Grr…I wanted to be more selective about my first clutch too. No, wait – maybe I have enough time to string a few males along…”

“What…will you do…after?” Hejinmal was rapidly running short on breath.

“Just leave them up there I guess,” Ilyshn’ish shrugged. “Or maybe set them up on some decent icebergs if I spot them along the way.”

“I…don’t…I don’t…” His words trailed off into heavy panting.

Ilyshn’ish restored the enchantments on her floundering brother before he dropped completely out of the sky.

“I…don’t think they’ll let you,” Hejinmal said after his wheezing abated. “They won’t even believe you’ll come back.”

“Hmm…that’s a pretty good idea, brother,” Ilyshn’ish said. “I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of them – it might be a good time to just leave.”

“The Sorcerous Kingdom is full of powerful casters: they’ve probably put something on this equipment, or have ways to divine you no matter where you go…”

“Then what do I do? Don’t you think this is a pretty pressing matter, brother?”

“It is! I know it is…but…well, maybe we could just ask Lady Shalltear when we arrive in Feoh Jura?”

“She wanted to cook and sell them to these mortals!”

“She did? I-I mean...what choice do we have? You can’t escape, sister. All we can do is ask and hope for a favourable reply.”

They flew for the rest of the day in silence, and it was not until the dark hours of the morning that they arrived at the surface outpost of Feoh Jura. Despite the early hour, the fortress-like structure hewn out of the mountain was bustling with activity: a stream of Dwarves was steadily bringing up cargo from the access shaft and loading them onto sledges, while Vampire Brides attended to Frost Dragons flying in and out.

They landed on a clear section of the outpost wall, and several Vampire Brides crawled up to retrieve their delivery. As light as they had felt when she departed from the E-Rantel, they were now like heavy stone weights after nearly sixteen hours of flight. Hejinmal looked down to the Vampire Bride who was updating his cargo manifest.

“Ahem. Excuse me?” His voice lacked a certain draconic assertiveness, which annoyed Ilyshn’ish for some reason.

“Yes, what is it?” The Vampire Bride answered absently, not looking up from her work.

“My sister here needs to see Lady Shalltear,” he answered. “Is she available? It’s a matter of great importance.”

The Vampire Bride scanned the page in the manifest, then looked down into the area where the sledges were being loaded.

“Hmm…the Dwarves seem to be behind a bit, and it says here that you are to travel together with Number Nineteen…”

“That’s my sister,” Hejinmal filled in helpfully.

Ilyshn’ish itched to give him a thwack.

“Is that so?” The Vampire Bride replied, “In that case, you should have about half an hour before there’s enough to send you two off with. Lady Shalltear should be near the gate leading down into the city.”

The two Frost Dragons looked to the massive, metal gate through the heavy flakes of blowing snow. With so many people moving about, the air was a mix of smells, sounds and movements which made it hard for them to determine who was who. Ilyshn’ish looked for the black gown that she had seen Lady Shalltear wearing the previous night.

“I don’t see anyone like Lady Shalltear,” Ilyshn’ish said.

“Me neither,” said Hejinmal.

The Vampire Bride turned to point in the direction of the open gates.

“She’s on the right side of the gate under the small pavilion there – wearing the white fur coat and ushanka.”

“Ushwah?” Hejinmal struggled with the word.

“The fur cap.”

Ilyshn’ish looked back down to the loading area. There was indeed a pavilion at the gate, with a figure in a white fur coat and cap standing within behind a stone desk. They padded around the wall of the outpost until they reached the mountain face and hopped down to the ground. There was a wumph sound as her brother flattened a snowdrift behind her, sending even more snow into the howling wind. Nearly half of those present stopped what they were doing to turn their heads at the sudden noise.

“You again,” Lady Shalltear peered up at Ilyshn’ish, then glanced over to Hejinmal. “Well, at least you brought the fat one as well. I didn’t expect him to arrive for a few days yet. Is something the matter?”

“I…” Ilyshn’ish’s voice trailed off as she thought about how she could put her circumstances across in a convincing manner.

“Lady Shalltear,” Hejinmal said from beside her, “my sister needs to breed.”

I will definitely kill this idiot.

The Vampire furrowed her brow, and her lips turned down into a small frown.

“Breed, you say? Hmm…well, if that means I get more Frost Dragons…we’re quite busy at the moment, so you have around twenty minutes to get it over with.”

“T-twenty minutes?” Ilyshn’ish said incredulously, “That’s nowhere near enough time; I still have to find a mate and–”

“How about this one?” Lady Shalltear pointed to Hejinmal.

“I-I, er, uh…” Hejinmal spluttered.

“That’s my brother!”

“Is that so? Hm…let’s see, how about…” Lady Shalltear turned to look around the outpost with a finger on her chin.

“They’re all my siblings!”

“Oh. Well, that’s too bad I suppose,” Lady Shalltear looked back up at her. “We have an important schedule to keep, so I can’t have you flying off to Lord-Peroroncino-knows-where. Better luck next time – maybe you should have used the Temple of the Six Great Gods? I’ve recently heard that they offer matchmaking services.”