“Where are Styrhildur and Hraki?’ asked Garún.
“They’re downstairs, going over the weapons.”
“I’m going to check up on them. Keep an eye on Loftkastalinn and call us if you see something.”
The hallway was old but still unfinished. The cemented staircase was dusty and the walls coarse and bare. The windows and doors leading into the hallway had been bricked over. She heard a faint sound of conversation when she got to the bottom of the stairs. Hraki and Styrhildur. She stopped and listened. They kept going, seeming not to have heard her.
“… unsure about her.” A small voice, but determined. Hraki. The echo of the empty house made Styrhildur’s voice deeper and stronger.
“It has been a tough few days for … We can’t expect her to …’
Katrín? Or were they talking about her? “…
like a psychopath. Screaming in her sleep and then … Can’t trust her. Is she using …’
Garún had had enough – she wasn’t going to listen to more of this – and stomped down the stairs. Hraki instantly fell quiet as he heard her approach. Their pistols and knives were laid out on a table in front of them, alongside two fully prepared cases of ammunition.
“Garún. Hi. We were just going over everything. Just to be sure.” Styrhildur avoided looking straight at Garún, pointed out the weapons to her. “Are you set?’
“I’m good.” She picked up one of the knives. The steel was spotted with rust, but it would do. Like anything else. Had to do. She slid it into a sheath on her belt. “This is an unnecessary amount of ammunition, though. If it comes to it that we have to reload more than once, we are as good as dead.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said Hraki and attempted a smile. “It could come in handy later on.”
Garún nodded. She tried to remain calm and composed. They could have been talking about Katrín. Or herself. She knew that her sleep had been restless these last few days. It was the delýsíð sheet she wrapped around her body, every day. Infused with relentless rage. It kept her going, like oil to a fire. But it was also burning her out.
“I don’t know how much you heard,” said Styrhildur suddenly, “but I just wanted to—”
A shout from above stopped her.
“Now! It’s happening!’
Garún immediately sprinted up the stairs, the other two following closely behind her.
* * *
When lightning strikes it only lasts for a fraction of a second. One single moment where the destructive forces of nature break out in an almighty blaze. Mankind wasn’t intended to suffer more than this brief contact with uncontrollable energy. Most people couldn’t even handle that.
Sæmundur was like a lightning rod in a never-ending thunderstorm. An uncontrollable force flowed through him; his bones were aflame with power, burning him from the inside like glowing coals. There was no mercy to be found, no hope of a moment’s respite. The pain was unbearable. He was a man stretched on a rack, about to be torn apart. His mouth spouted incomprehensible sounds, merging with the damned wails that Bektalpher and the níðstangir emitted. A wind blew through the trees and carried with it the unearthly sound, making the dire beasts inhabiting the forest howl and shiver. The sky was oppressive, the heavy clouds grey with malice. About them moved flares and sparks in uncanny colours. The earth shook, like a dormant primordial þurs being awakened with a heart kindled with burning hatred.
A rift in reality formed near Loftkastalinn.
The naked eye could not properly detect what it was, but the mind sensed that something had been torn and given way. Dark, unwordly tendrils reached out towards the flying fortress, like inquisitive tentacles. Where they stroked the iron it deformed, never twice in the same way. It melted and burned, poured over the soldiers that ran around in disarray. Disfigured limbs grew out of it and tore people apart without hesitation. Where the tendrils touched humans they fell down dead, or they shook and trembled, their flesh mutating and their eyes glowing with a starless void. Every single bone in their body turned dark blue with demons. The possessed chanted galdur in a frantic tongue, both out of their own mouths and whatever monstrous maw or orifice that had formed on their body. From the bodies of the living, dead and possessed creatures burst out, some of them a chitinous black like Kölski, others unimaginable horrors that were not shaped by any laws of nature. Soldiers loaded their rifles and fired, reloaded, fired, sometimes so rapidly that the powder burst too soon in the barrel due to embers that still glowed there from the last shot. The barrage had no effect. The creatures were unstoppable. Sæmundur saw the sweat beading on their brow, heard their last words, smelled the gunpowder and blood. He saw, he heard, he felt – everything.
Air raid sirens sounded throughout the city. Beyond the rift something could almost be seen moving, something that was watching and waiting for a chance to fully break through. Loftkastalinn’s heavy artillery turned slowly and fired at the dark tendrils. The shots that hit their targets were instantly transformed, some becoming like molten lava or crimson lightning, others a demonic life form that fell to the city, bursting with toxic fumes or soaring into the air on twisted wings. Most of the rounds missed their mark and hit the city. Houses
