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“What did you do?” I asked, dabbing at the blood on my cheeks. The wounds stung more than I thought they ought to. Probably a holdover from the mistletoe poisoning. I’d be healing slowly for the next few days.
“Transfer,” she said, stooping to seize a large piece of the window. The jagged edges cut at her palms as she did. “Emotions have power. Sex would have been ideal to take from you, but I doubt our pestilent foes would appreciate the show.”
The stirrings I felt with her pressed against me evaporated and in their place, a chill ran over my skin at the reminder of exactly what she was. How far I’d allowed myself to fall—allying myself with a witch who stood against my own kinsmen. And I’d very nearly just bedded her.
Disgraceful.
Fyrcat dipped a slender finger into the blood running from her temple and traced a rune onto her makeshift weapon. Ideally, she could have used the wand and the many potions she’d stored in her bags, but they’d been in the death trap when we’d crashed. She’d be fortunate if any of her magical aids had survived the encounter.
“You plan to melee with that?” I asked, flicking a dubious look at the shard in her hand. “They’ll take your head before you get close.”
“Worry about yourself,” she shot back. “Pay attention, fool. They’re coming.”
I sensed the draugr before I saw it. The heavy-set man who’d advanced on us moments before was back, swinging a fence post in a wide arc toward my head. I maneuvered my blade into position an instant before the rusty nails jutting from the bottom would have made contact with my skin. The wood split with a crack, raining splinters down on my head.
The draugr stared down at the pieces in his hands for a moment before taking another swing, jabbing one of the broken pieces toward my ribs, and the other toward my face.
“Move!” Fyrcat cried.
Again, I didn’t think, I only acted. I backed away, narrowly avoiding a blow from behind. The emaciated woman holding a length of rebar went down easily. One kick to the knees, and she was on her back, unable to right herself enough to fight. The warrior inside would have to get on its knees to come after me again, which would put it within easy striking distance.
An ear-rending bellow came from the draugr I’d battled only moments before. It clutched the smoking ruin of its host’s eyes, staggering around in bewilderment, bowling a half-dozen of his fellows as he went. The eerie glow of the berserker spirit couldn’t be seen in the hollows of the skull.
I turned to find Fyrcat who was watching the spectacle with some satisfaction. Another of the berserkers, meanwhile, staggered forward, swinging a spade at her face. She turned the shard of glass toward the man with a contemptuous flick of her wrist, catching the dim winter light in its reflection. And the second the light touched the hollow eye sockets, the warrior began to scream in pain. What little flesh remained on the corpse bubbled and dribbled down into the hole, burying the ghostly light under a tide of viscera.
“What in Hel’s name is that?” I shouted over the continued cries of the draugrs. The others had slowed a little, wary of the witch’s new trick.
“I’ll tell you if we survive,” she answered, baring her teeth in a fierce grin. “I’ll disable them, and you can handle the rest.”
“They’ll find other bodies.”
“Then they’ll have to search elsewhere, which will give us time to get the blasted humans you care so much about out of town. Now get down!”
A blade slashed through the air just as I lowered my head. Several strands of my hair fluttered to the ground. I pivoted just in time to see another of the draugrs lose its eyes. The body it inhabited was a slender woman, so light on her feet that I hadn’t sensed her approach. The smell of rotting flesh was so pervasive, the thunder of their steps so all-encompassing, that I couldn’t have made it out if I tried. One upward slash sent the head flying. It bounced to a stop a few feet away, tripping another of its fellows.
“To your left!” Fyrcat called, swinging her shining toy in the direction she’d indicated. I turned, sword at the ready and took off the arm of a child who’d been attempting to jab a knife through the chink in my armor. I did feel a small pang of remorse when the body tumbled to the ground. Not enough to keep me from removing its head, but the emotion was still there.
Stupid, really. The child had been dead long before one of my kinsmen commandeered his body. Still, mutilating him post-mortem seemed… wrong.
A large bear of a man staggered into me from my right. I slipped on a patch of ice and scarcely managed to right my balance. The thing came after me, sensing an opening. I feinted left, and then buried my blade up to the hilt in the draugr’s putrid flesh. It let out a gurgling moan but didn’t collapse like the others had.
“Go for the head,” I called to Fyrcat.
She actually had the nerve to roll her eyes at me. “Of course, you go for the head, you ponce. Haven’t you watched zombie movies?”
“What?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered. “If you survive, I’m giving you a crash course in Midgard’s modern culture. Another one is coming up behind you, by the way. And… ah, it has a chainsaw. Lovely. Take a few steps back if you value your eyes.”
A hideous sound split the air, and the next draugr came at me with a scything blade. The thing was moving so rapidly, I could scarcely keep track of it. I staggered back as ordered, narrowly avoiding the beam of Fyrcat’s improvised weapon.
It reacted just like the others, flesh melting away on contact with the light. I saw my opening as the corpse listed to the side. My sword arched down, severing the draugr’s arms with a spray of pus and clotted blood. The foreign weapon dropped to the ground, continuing to roar for a few seconds before sputtering out. More and more draugr swarmed us. I carved a path through them until there was enough room for an escape.
I seized Fyrcat’s arm when she tried to dive toward the death trap and the tools of her trade. She made a kitten-like sound of frustration when I tucked her beneath one arm and began hauling her in the opposite direction.
“I need my bag!” she snapped.
“You need to live,” I snapped back. “If we make it out of this, you can always make more tools. You can’t use them if you’re dead.”
