When the putrid water had reached her waist, Garún’s fingertips came across something. Something coarse, wet, covered in mud. She groped blindly in front of her and got a grip on Katrín. Katrín resisted, tried weakly to heed the call of the hrævareldar. Garún pulled her in and placed both her hands firmly in front of her eyes. Katrín struggled, tried to fight her way out of the grip, but Garún held on for her life. She was faintly aware of a series of flashes and despite the music she could hear cold and deep voices rising from the darkness.
Katrín suddenly threw herself backwards, making Garún lose her grip and fall back. Garún intended to leap back up and grab hold of Katrín before she could escape, but stumbled when a blood-curdling scream came from Katrín. Garún was so startled that for a moment pure reflex took over. She opened her eyes.
A moon-white creature rose from the pitch-black water, its skin waxen and its flesh sagging. The hrævareldar swarmed around it, like carrion flies around a rotten corpse. The creature’s maw was lined with jagged teeth, its jaw jutting unnaturally far out. Limbs erupted from its body like broken branches, more than a dozen gaunt appendages that reached towards them, clawing forward on the marshland, trying to get a hold on the muddy bottom. Katrín stood, frozen, staring into the beast’s terrible mouth. Garún felt its rancid stench on her, like an open mass grave. Its eyes, bloated orbs on twisted stalks, turned towards Garún and she felt as if she was all alone up against the bottomless abyss.
She frantically got out her can of delýsíð and the dagger she had at her belt, sprayed the knife’s blade and threw it with all her might at the abomination’s head. The knife slid without resistance into the creature’s flesh and it let out a terrible wail that cut through bone and marrow. The creature’s appendages flailed and tore out the dagger. Yellow pus burst from the wound. Its eyestalks flailed in agony, like a nest of maggots. One eyeball turned dark with coagulated blood, bloating like a terrible fruit about to burst. The hrævareldar flared and scattered as the creature retreated into the dark waters of the ditch. As soon as it vanished from sight Katrín collapsed into the mire.
That’s when the sun rose.
A red sun lit up the empty sky. It flickered intensely, an eye burned into the pitch-black night. Then it multiplied and scattered, spreading out to cover the abyssal Rökkurvík sky. That was no sun. Those were flares. They moved with an unknown purpose, bathing the world in crimson light.
The Crown was here.
Garún threw Katrín over her shoulders and started running.
Tuttugu og eitt
The flares spread across the sky. Red, agitated lights, like a swarm of wasps. Þráinn Meinholt watched them move with great satisfaction. His eyes in the sky.
“We have full visual,” Magister Gapaldur hissed through their beaked mask, their voice muffled and distorted. “Coverage stands at optimal capacity. The hrævareldar will not pose a threat as long as the lights shine.”
Þráinn gave his affirmation with a grunt and turned to Officer Lárus, the person designated as his law enforcement liaison during this operation. Lárus was older than him by a good decade, a beat cop who had risen slowly but surely through the ranks to inspector. Lárus found himself working with the Directorate often, much to his chagrin. Þráinn requested him due to his renowned thick-headedness and tendency for unchecked brutality, features that usually posed an inconvenience in everyday law enforcement, but in cases such as these they were transmuted into refined and desirable qualities.
“Inspector, have your men all moved through the portal?’
“The last squad should come through any moment.”
“Good. Assemble them as soon as they’ve stopped retching. We’re moving out.”
“All right.”
“I remind you that Commissioner Kofoed-Hansen expects this to be executed flawlessly and efficiently. Make sure your men understand that.”
“Will do. Sir,” he added.
Þráinn was used to the reluctance of the police and military in accepting his authority during joint operations. That didn’t mean he tolerated it – on the contrary, he took exception to blatant disregard of the chain of command. Dealing with the rank and file grunts was routine enough, and he’d had time to put Lárus in his place, but working with not one but two seiðskrattar was a different beast entirely. The royal seiðskrattar were technically classified as high-ranking military officers, although they operated in a separate branch. This meant that the seiðskrattar did not fall under his authority, although Þráinn was in command of the operation. The seiðskrattar were asked to comply with his commands, but if they so felt they could safely overrule or defy him. The two seiðskrattar were Count Trampe’s frequent advisors. Having both of them here meant that the stiftamtmaður intended to see that this operation went off without a hitch.
They’d set up a perimeter by a lone, decrepit house in an open mud field. The house had already been secured as a safe house by their undercover agents in Rökkurvík, now acting as their base of operations. Þráinn walked through the wet mud, idly wondering how the earth managed to be this wet when it never rained here. Magister Ginfaxi stood by the portal, channelling violent streams of seiðmagn through themselves to manipulate the portal they had opened in the middle of the field. Obsidian pillars jutted out of the ground in a rough circle, their bent, coarse shapes looking like malevolent fingers bursting through earth. The air was thick with vibrant currents of seiðmagn, making Þráinn’s stomach turn and his hair stand on end. A group of armed police officers appeared in the middle of the circle, moving through the flickering wound in reality. The rift was not clearly visible, being freshly made and still bleeding, so
