Chapter Twenty-Five
We left Aith shortly after sunrise, with my army bigger than ever, now that I had my undead war-spiders. Webmaven Layna had bid us farewell. She’d wished to come with us, but had too many issues to deal with in her city, now that the council had fallen. I promised to return to her when I’d hunted down my uncle. I hated leaving behind a woman with whom I’d shared a strong connection, but that promise had been made to myself, too. I would return for Layna and see if I could convince her to join my party.
Passing through the city also meant leaving behind the highest peaks in the mountain range. The forest grew thicker around us as the land flattened and opened up. Over the next few days, we began to encounter small villages and farms again. This might have been a heartening sight in normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal circumstances. The villages and farms were deserted, seemingly abandoned in a hurry, and not too long ago—that was, by those who’d made it out. The scent of Death was thick in the air, and I could feel its cold chill in my bones. And that was before we actually entered the villages, often even before we saw them. Once inside, I didn’t need to rely on any other sense than smell or sight to find evidence of slaughter. Men, women, children, even the elderly had been massacred, their bodies left to rot wherever they had fallen. We could find no corpses of young women though. My uncle Rodrick wasn’t even remotely trying to hide the fact that he and his men were behind these atrocities.
We swore to avenge these innocents who had been cut down by Rodrick and his forces. It was yet another reason to pursue our mission, a reminder that my uncle and anyone who helped him in his evil pursuits deserved nothing less than a painful death. Of course, we still had to rescue Lucielle from him too. If he had her, it may already be too late, and then we might all die too. But there was no point ruminating on this possibility. Instead, I thought of how sweet my vengeance would be when I finally shoved Grave Oath into my uncle’s lying throat and watched his head shrivel up as I sucked his soul out.
That thought never failed to motivate me. Eyes on the prize.
We had some hurdles ahead before I could claim my satisfying reward. We had to get past the Jotunn. I’d never actually seen one of them, but I’d heard plenty of tales. Most stories depicted them as 20 feet tall and with blue skin. Immense strength enabled them to wield gargantuan clubs enchanted with Cold magic. They were also capable of living for hundreds of years, but their war-like culture meant their lifespans were often much shorter than that.
And everything I’d heard about them indicated they were tough, no-nonsense bastards, and not particularly welcoming to strangers—in the sense that they ended up eating half of the people who came their way. Yeah, the Jotunn quite enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Perhaps you could say they were welcoming to strangers, in the same way as I was welcoming to a plate of grilled meat after a battle victory.
The one good thing about the Jotunn was that they were probably not allied with the Blood God. The Jotunn didn’t worship any gods, never had and most likely never would. They believed themselves equals to gods, and they refused to worship anyone. As unhappy as they might be about me passing through their territory, at least they wouldn’t be working for the Blood God like the Council of Aith had been.
Then there was the matter of getting the Cloak of Changing from the Jotunn king, Engroth. Best-case scenario, we wouldn’t need the cloak in the end. Hopefully, defeating Rodrick and destroying the Temple of Blood would put an end to the Blood God once and for all. However, in the event that my uncle escaped, or that he managed to sacrifice Lucielle before I could prevent it, we sure as hell would be needing that Cloak of Changing—in addition to a bunch of other items scattered across the length and breadth of the known world. I couldn’t afford to pass up the opportunity to get the cloak since we wouldn’t be passing through this area again, regardless of what happened. As to how we were going to get it—well, the king of the Frost Giants was as likely to want to eat us as he was to negotiate over the purchase of an enchanted wolfskin.
After we passed several more ravaged villages, the landscape kept opening up around us. Soon, we were in open fields, strewn with boulders and covered with a couple feet of snow. Cold meant nothing to my undead troops, but for the living ones, it was starting to get uncomfortable. Even I could feel it in my bones, and I’d always been resilient to low temperatures. It felt like exactly the kind of place the Frost Giants would choose as their homeland.
Sure enough, Friya rode up next to me and confirmed it.
“Be vigilant, Raiser of the Dead,” she said. “The Jotunn attack first and ask questions later.”
“Got it,” I said as my gaze swept across the snow-covered landscape.
“You are a brave warrior and an exceptional commander, and you wield the power of Death magic with great potency,” Friya said. “But do not underestimate the Jotunn. They are ferocious opponents, and very resistant to death.”
“I can bring death to anything that breathes,” I said. “It’s just a matter of finding its weakness. And every living thing, no matter how strong or fierce, has a weakness.”
The wind was picking up, stirring flurries of snow, and fresh snow fell from thick black
