“What’s going on, Vance?” Elyse asked.
“It’s over,” I muttered, hanging my head. “Rodrick and the Blood God have won.”
“Why?” Rami-Xayon asked. “Has the sacrifice been completed? What did you see?”
“There’s an obstacle in the passage through the mountains. It will add hours to our journey. We’ll arrive well after dawn. The sacrifice will have been carried out.”
“No!” Drok yelled. But in his gravelly voice, there was hope, not despair. He had his usual idiot’s grin on his face.
“Drok, what the hell’s gotten into you?” I asked. “Do you not understand what I’ve just told you?”
“Drok understand! But Drok know way get to Rodrick before dawn. Obstacle in trail no matter.”
“How?”
“Remember we fight Rollar? You use baby bag for harpy carry Elyse. Harpy can fly over obstacle! Harpy can only carry you, but you strong. You God of Death! You defeat Rodrick! You go alone. Harpy take you. You kill Rodrick. Easy. We come later, help you later. But you go first, with harpy, and stop sacrifice. Easy, easy, we win!”
The deep frown on my face turned into a smile. The crazy bastard was actually making perfect sense. This was the only way to stop the sacrifice before dawn. Hell, if I was sneaky enough, I could even kill a couple of my uncle’s troops and use them as zombies before first light so that I wasn’t completely alone against my uncle and his minions.
“It’s a crazy fucking plan, Drok,” I said, “but fuck it—it’s our only hope. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna take on my uncle and his forces alone.”
Everyone murmured their agreement, but their eyes were clouded with worry. We all knew our chances of success were slimmer with this crazy plan than they would have been without the obstacle, but slim chances were better than no chances.
“Wish me luck, everyone,” I said as I called Talon down from the sky. “That shady fuckbrain Rodrick won’t know what hit him.”
The harpy dug its claws into my armor, plucked me off Fang’s back, and surged upward, carrying me into the darkening sky. I waved to my party one last time as they watched me from below, before the harpy and I disappeared into the clouds.
From this point on, I was on my own.
Chapter Thirty-One
I watched as my companions were swallowed up by the ocean of clouds beneath me. The air was cold down there, but up above the clouds it was fucking freezing. To take my mind off the icy cold and the somewhat unnerving fact that I was about to go into battle against my uncle and his forces on my own, I closed my eyes, trusting the harpy to take me where I needed to go, and traveled to the black plane. I figured that after the battle with Elgroth’s Jotunn, I’d have gained enough new souls to give me a new skill, maybe even two. A Frost Giant’s soul had to be worth a good few regular human warriors’ souls, right?
I opened my eyes and found myself on the black plane, where there was no more cold, no frigid wind rushing against my body with the speed of the flight, no ever-present sensation of the ground hungrily sucking me toward it. No, up here everything was calm. There was no wind, and it was neither hot nor cold. Come to think of it, there probably wasn’t even any air here—not the kind of air my body was breathing in and out on the mortal plane, at any rate.
I jogged across the glassy black surface, which stretched out beyond me farther than I could see in all directions, and kept my gaze fixed on the upper branches of the tree. I ran with bated breath, hoping, almost catching myself praying, as I’d been brought up to do. I sure as hell could use something new in my arsenal to take on an army on my own.
A grin spread across my face as I approached the tree; two new skills hung like ripe fruit from the upper branches of the gray tree, glowing brightly with the promise of fresh, potent power.
I clambered up the tree with my eyes locked on the prize. The lower of the two showed an image of a warrior imprisoned in a cage made of bones. It looked like a huge ribcage had burst out of the ground beneath him, and closed around him like a giant set of teeth.
“Bone Prison,” I muttered as I reached it, grinning. “This will definitely come in handy.”
A jolt ripped through my body as I grabbed the fruit and this new ability became part of my magical skillset. I was itching to try it out, but first I had to grab the other skill, which was a branch or two above this one.
This one looked as if it would be perfect for taking on multiple opponents; the image was a vividly lifelike picture of me, holding a crossbow made entirely of bones, which shot sharp shards of bone. Being a magical weapon, the bow didn’t have a string, and it didn’t need to be cocked or reloaded. The image showed bone shards coming up out of the ground and flying straight into the weapon; it seemed that my supply of ammunition would be limited only by the amount of corpses in the dirt beneath me.
This skill—Bone Bow—I guessed I would be able to try out while still flying in the harpy’s claws. There were a good few more skills in the heights of the tree above, obscured by fog, so I wasn’t nearly as strong as I could be…but that didn’t matter. Not much at all mattered right now, really, aside from doing everything in my power to prevent my uncle from sacrificing Lucielle at dawn.
Part
