Tangled Threads Publishing

Tag: squiddies

  • 14.17 – Talon Knights

    14.17 – Talon Knights

    Jorir shouldered his way forward as Einarr slipped back into the open space behind their line. I wonder how the other teams are getting on? He shook his head: there was no way to find out, and he had more important matters to hand.

    In one smooth motion he slid Sinmora back into her sheath and drew a piece of chalk from his belt pouch. The simplest way to crack rock is with Isa – ice. One single downward stroke accomplished that – but then he hesitated. Isa was stasis, so by itself it wouldn’t do much. He needed something else to actually sunder the block.

    Then another thought occurred to him: if they were under assault from this side, wasn’t it likely there would be more enemies on the other side of the wall? In that case…

    Einarr activated ᛁ first, and cold began to radiate off the stone. He could actually see the cold air falling away from it. Then he drew a ᚦ and put the full force of his will into it, directing it like a hammer blow away and into the fortress.

    The stone shattered like a thunderclap.

    The cursed warriors pressing his team froze as though stunned by the noise. From the other side of the wall, Einarr heard shouts of surprise and pain as whoever waited there was pelted by the shattered block.

    “Let’s move!” Einarr traded his chalk for his sword once again and ducked into the opening Jorir had cut before the dust had begun to clear.

    When he emerged from the cloud he saw five or six men – ordinary men, so far as he could tell – sporting well-tended maille and shields made entirely of steel. If these men had the black blood, they had not yet succumbed to it. Einarr dropped into a wary guard as his companions dashed through behind him. Jorir came last and stood facing their impromptu gate, taking out the cursed ones as they tried to follow.

    “Who do you serve?” Einarr demanded.

    One of the men they faced laughed, but didn’t lower his guard. “I’ll ask the questions here.”

    Einarr was well aware of the absurdity. “If those black-blooded men and the tentacled cats are your allies, then we are foes. But your squad appears to be in their right mind. Who do you serve?”

    Now the man sneered back. “How dare you compare my men and me to animals such as those! We are of the Talon Knights, elite guard of the Holy City Cresurgh!”

    “Holy – to whom?” Troa’s usual calm felt unusually tight to Einarr.

    The spokesman went on as though they hadn’t said anything. “Those cats, and the animals pressing at the gates, are as pets to our order.”

    Why am I not surprised? Einarr tensed, ready to strike the moment he saw a weakness.

    Irding made an opening. He let loose a war cry and charged, both axes held behind himself. He chopped at the spokesman’s knees.

    The knight jumped back to avoid the blow. Irding smoothly pivoted to bury one axe in the leg of a different knight.

    Meanwhile, the talkative one had taken his eyes off of Einarr. Now! Einarr lunged, shield first, to shove him off-balance. As the knight stumbled, Einarr brought Sinmora down to chop at his opponent’s elbow.

    Sinmora clanged off the shield. Somehow, he had the presence of mind to catch himself with one hand and bring the shield around, even with the surprise attack.

    The knight, crouched over backwards, sneered at Einarr. Then there was a flash of silver, and before Einarr could react his opponent was upright again, if still crouching, and the breeze cooled a trickle of blood through a new slice in Einarr’s trousers.

    “Tsk. You might almost be as good as you think you are.” A drop of blood dripped from the knight’s spear. Einarr had not realized that was what the man wielded until just that second.

    “Thanks. I try.” Einarr did not take his eyes off the rising knight. That was faster than he’d ever heard of a man being. Was it Malúnion’s power, or was he just that good? Arkja had drawn his blade, as well, and he and Irding each fought two of these Talon Knights while Einarr dueled their leader. Meanwhile, Jorir and Troa were still busy trying to keep the cursed warriors from coming through and overwhelming them. I need to end this quickly. “Holy City, huh? So, is everyone here a damn Squiddie?”

    The semi-permanent sneer on the man’s face twisted into a snarl. “Watch your tongue!”

    Einarr had to fend off three strikes in quick succession. He turned the spear on the first one and side-stepped the second, but the third put a second tear in his pant leg. Still, Einarr was satisfied. The knight was an excellent warrior, but he was easily nettled. He thought he saw how to break past his guard, too, but he wanted to test it again before he committed.

    “Talon knights? Don’t you mean tentacle knights?”

    As hoped, that provoked another flurry of stabs from the knight’s spear. And, as Einarr thought, when in the middle of one of those flurries, the man dropped his shield. Not very far, and not for very long, but it would be enough. He dropped into a low stance, Sinmora held up and back, as though he were going to try his shield charge again. “Real question, though, Squid knight. How many of those cursed warriors used to be knights like you?”

    The knight’s face reddened at the appellation of ‘squid knight.’ He might not even have heard the question. This time he abandoned defense entirely and stabbed for Einarr’s belly.

    Einarr sidestepped. The tip of his spear caught in the brokkrsteel maille and snapped. The knight stumbled forward, and Einarr brought Sinmora down. The knight had been moving just a little too quickly, though, and so rather than striking the knight’s head from his shoulders it clashed against the back of his silvered armor. Some of the silvering flaked off: underneath, it was black as coal.

    “Holy City, my foot. Malúnion is nothing more than a minion of Hel, and before this day is through you will know it personally!”

     

    Previous

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    This is what I expect to be the final book of The Adventures of Einarr Stigandersen. After four, almost five, years and fourteen books, I’m ready to move on to other projects – and I’m sure Einarr is ready for me to do so, as well – if only so I stop tormenting him! Fear not, however: my intention is to start a new serial, although not a purely free one. Look for a poll or an announcement from me in the next few weeks as I firm up my ideas.

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon. Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr e-book through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

     

  • 14.4 – Treasure Trove

    14.4 – Treasure Trove

    “I’m afraid you do, milord. That… that was excellent ale you left behind in Blávík. I’m only sorry it was wasted on the likes of us.”

    Einarr sighed, loudly. “I ought to charge you for the damages to my Heidrun, but I suppose that would be pointless now. You’re telling me you’ve moved on from press-ganging princes to annihilating whole settlements?”

    He wasn’t quite certain how Thrand managed to look more miserable, but he did.

    Einarr sighed again. “We’ll deal with the crimes of the League later. Based on what we saw in the square, it is plain to me there was, in fact, some sort of Squiddie presence here in Kem. Which means before we head back to Breidelstein, we need to find their base and figure out what they were up to. Congratulations, Thrand. You’ll not lose your head this day.”

    The man looked far more relieved about that than Einarr thought the statement warranted, to the point where he struggled not to weep. Perhaps it was because he had been alone in the wreckage of the city for so long.

    “You’re not off the hook, mind. You’re going to help us find this base and figure out what they were up to. Then you’re coming back to Breidelstein with us, after we pick up some freeholders we think might be in need of rescue.”

    “Yes, milord. Gladly, milord: I can lead you straight to their hideout: that’s where all the trouble began, milord.”

    They passed a cold night in the harbor, lit as much by the glowing embers of Kem as by the moon and the stars above. Einarr ordered a cask of cider warmed to settle the nerves of his crew and keep them alert through their watch.

    If there was one mercy, it seemed to be that the League’s fire had kept a city’s worth of dead from rising for vengeance. In the morning, those who had last watch were relieved, and Einarr set off with half the crew to follow Thrand to where he said they had found the cult of Malúnion.

    Einarr had thought he was prepared for what he would see there, after searching through the wreckage of the city the previous day. He was wrong.

    It wasn’t the gore – to be honest, after the runic blaze the League had managed to set, there wasn’t much of that left on the surface, and down below it was mostly spatters of blood – some corrupted, some still human. Unfortunately, the local ‘temple’ of the cult had some… peculiar design sensibilities.

    Eyes. There were eyes everywhere. No matter where Einarr turned, he felt as though he were being watched – which, come to think of it, may have been the point.

    Jorir, too, seemed bemused. “The entire time I was in Nilthiad, not once did I run across anything like this.”

    “We didn’t see any sign of it at the altar, either – and of all the horrors of that demon, its eyes were not among them.”

    “Are we sure this is the same cult?” Eydri wondered.

    Thrand cleared his throat. “Absolutely. Or, at least, I don’t know too many men who would call on someone else’s horrible demigod as they rushed to battle.”

    “A fair point,” she conceded. “Still, it doesn’t look like they left much behind…”

    “That’s where you’re wrong.” Thrand actually sounded excited. “I came back to have a look around after the fire had cooled a bit. Even if I am to lose my head, it’s important that someone get this information out into the Clans.”

    The half-starved League Captain led them down a narrow flight of stairs, then a ladder, and into a passage that still sloped downward, if only gently.

    “How did you even find this place? We must be beneath the catacombs already!” Einarr did not bother trying to hide his surprise. Even if he had been kindly inclined towards Thrand in the first place, this was starting to feel like a trap.

    “There are no other people. There is easy access to fresh water just outside the city limits, and there are plenty of fish in the harbor. It wasn’t like I had much else to do since the fire, you know.”

    Einarr hummed, but let it drop for now.

    “We’re nearly there. Just… ah! Stop. Here.”

    The door in the wall was plain and unadorned. Had there been any other doors along this passage, Einarr might not have even noticed it.

    Thrand pushed the door open and stepped inside, as certain it was safe as if it were his own home. “I left the missives here once I found them. Safer that way – who knows what might happen to me up there, but someone else could have found this place and gotten the word out.”

    “Missives? What missives?” Irding blurted.

    “Orders. From home, I think. I’m no sorcerer, but give me enough time and I can puzzle out rune-writing.” He thrust a letter into Einarr’s hand.

    With a glance, Einarr was certain the other man was correct. With a brusque nod, he thrust the letter into his pouch. “Search the room! We’ll take anything interesting back up to the Heidrun with us: it would be far too easy to lose track of time down here, and I want wards again tonight.” The restless dead were not the only things that could be kept out that way, after all.

    That night, Einarr sat huddled with Hrug and Eydri and Jorir under the Captain’s awning, poring over what appeared to be the most recent orders from their home temple. It was… not good. Even if the League leadership hadn’t gotten a bee in its collective bonnet, the Squiddies were on a definite war footing – and it was a war that would have taken a vast number of clans utterly by surprise, boiling up quite literally from underground and striking at a populace that had no idea there were madmen in their midst.

    When morning came, a bleary-eyed Einarr addressed his crew. “We have found what we came for. Now it is our duty to ensure our Thane learns what we have. We will sail around the island and make land near the outskirts of Kem, where Thrand will take us to the water he has relied on since the disaster. Do not worry, Gabriel, I have not forgotten you. Once we have taken on fresh water, we will sail for your master’s freehold and take on those who remain. From there, we will make all possible haste back to Breidelstein. I fear the League has knocked down a hornet’s nest, and it is up to the rest of us to deal with the swarm.”

     

    Previous

    Next

    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    So begins what I expect to be the final book of The Adventures of Einarr Stigandersen. After four, almost five, years and fourteen books, I’m ready to move on to other projects – and I’m sure Einarr is ready for me to do so, as well – if only so I stop tormenting him! Fear not, however: my intention is to start a new serial, although not a purely free one. Look for a poll or an announcement from me in the next few weeks as I firm up my ideas.

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon. Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr e-book through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

     

  • 13.11 – Deeper In

    13.11 – Deeper In

    The dvergr who faced Thjofgrir was matching him blow for blow, keeping them both locked in the clinch. Other than Arring, Einarr would be hard-pressed to find a man stronger than Thjofgrir, but these were dvergr. Furthermore, they were corrupted dvergr. Rather than wait for the corrupted dvergr to pull his trick, Einarr and Kaldr both charged him, their blades leveled at his back.

    As an attack, it failed utterly as the dvergr spun and batted away both their blades in one smooth movement. As a distraction, however, it was a wild success. Thjofgrir rebounded from the clinch and buried his blade across the dvergr’s back. “I had him,” Thjofgrir growled as the corrupted dvergr crumpled to the floor.

    “Maybe so,” Einarr allowed, catching his breath. “But it looked to me like he was playing with you. These are monsters, not men, and you never know when they’re going to show their true colors.”

    Thjofgrir hummed but offered no more protest.

    Einarr, after a quick glance across all of them showed only minimal exposure to the blood, nodded and continued down the hall. Without another word, the others jogged after him.

    They encountered no more guards before they reached the hallway Mornik had mentioned. As he rounded the corner, though, Einarr stopped to gape.

    The hallway ahead seemed to stretch on for miles, although that should have been impossible – they were inside a mountain, after all – and the walls were nothing but one door after another, with almost no space in between. The space behind those doors couldn’t be anything but cramped, even for a child. Einarr shuddered to think how Runa might be taking such confined captivity.

    “Naudrek, you’re with me on the right. Kaldr, Thjofgrir, you take the left. We leapfrog down the line. Any captives who aren’t immediately hostile can go free if their blood is still red.”

    A noise of agreement came from all three men together, and they began working their way down the line. When they had gotten about halfway down, leaving the doors open for a handful of unfortunate, weeping dvergr women, Naudrek stopped.

    “Come take a look here,” he said.

    In front of him, instead of another room, was a steep, unlit stairway heading deeper into the mountain.

    “We haven’t found anyone up here with even a hint of magical talent, nor anyone who seems to have been captured recently enough,” Einarr mused. “I think we need to head down.”

    Kaldr raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

    “No,” Einarr answered with a rueful smile. “Just a hunch. Only, based on what I saw before, a woman like Runa is going to be a much more valuable prisoner for them than anyone we’ve seen here.”

    “Valuable as a hostage?” Kaldr’s question was reasonable, but that wasn’t it.

    “As an experiment.” He felt sick saying it, but that was what he had seen among the svartalfrs. “They make a target out of Singers – maybe those who practice other Arts, as well, but Singers for sure. Part of it is, they claim to hate magic – any magic that doesn’t come from their ‘god,’ anyway. But there was a she-troll we had to fight our way past in their fortress, before. A she-troll, who had once been an ordinary Singer.”

    “How do you know?” Naudrek looked vaguely green as he asked the question.

    “After we killed her, she turned back.”

    “By the gods…” Thjofgrir breathed.

    Kaldr shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense, though, that the dvergr cult would be creating monsters like that. Not with how Brandir said they’ve sold themselves here.”

    “Doesn’t it? Wouldn’t they need an all-powerful army to defend Nilthiad during Ragnarok?” Einarr shook his head. “Even if no one outside these halls knows about it, we’ve seen plenty of evidence already that they’re turning their own members into monsters, and that’s proof enough for me. There’s a rather significant measure of madness involved in whatever the Squiddies touch.”

    “And what if your hunch is wrong?” Naudrek challenged.

    “Then we fight our way back up here, I suppose. But I don’t think it is. I think they’ll have Runa much further in than this.”

    There was nothing more to be said to that. The others followed him down the staircase, another glowing rock in hand to light their way.

    At the bottom was another long hallway, although in this one the doors were spaced somewhat further apart. The cages, while larger, were mostly empty. One or two were occupied, but their occupants were both chained and drugged into a stupor. Einarr did not like to think what that suggested about their mental state, or how controlled they were. They moved on: as horrible as this was, they could not lose sight of their goal. Runa was in here somewhere, and Runa was with child. Please let them be unharmed…

    Now that they were well and truly separated from the humans, Jorir and the other dvergr ran down the halls without a care for who they alerted. They had – not entirely selfishly – taken on themselves the task of causing mayhem in the Holy Mount of the Deep Wisdom sect. Once upon a time, he had tried to bridge the gap between the squiddies and the rest of the dvergr: for his trouble, he had been cursed: never more would his smithing produce magic, nevermore would he be able to so much as recognize the runes. And, when he raised the alarm, he had been exiled for his trouble.

    This may have been a little personal from the beginning.

    Jorir’s mouth curled into a rictus of a grin. With the capture of the Lady Runa, they had just made this very personal. He was going to enjoy this.

    He and Brandir approached a wide double-door, leading – he thought – into the outermost temple area. As one, they kicked forward with heavy boots and the doors flung open. It looked like a gathering place, anyway: there were long benches with comfortable-looking cushions, and the walls were draped with ridiculous quantities of cloth. He snatched a torch from its sconce and flung it forward into the room.

     

     

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

     

  • 13.10 – Secret Passage

    13.10 – Secret Passage

    The patrolling guards never saw what hit them. Einarr blinked to realize there were only two who came to investigate, and those two were already down.  They continued on their way.

    The passage Mornik led them down showed every sign of having been long forgotten. They passed truly massive spider’s nests and other signs of vermin as they crept down into the mountain and towards whatever horrors might lurk beneath on their way to reclaim Runa. Still, though, they moved cautiously and kept their speech to a minimum: voices carry in caves, after all, and there was no telling who might be listening on the other end.

    They had not gone very far, though, before Einarr decided to risk a light. He claimed a loose stone from the ground and inscribed it with a sun rune, willing it to life very dimly – much as he had with his shield in the Paths of Stone.

    From time to time they passed small branch passages, some of them no bigger than a crack in the wall, all of which appeared to have been claimed by vermin. When they heard a skitter or a squeak, it almost invariably came from down one of these passages. Little wonder they had been claimed by vermin after something like two hundred years – Jorir had never said when in the upheaval he was exiled, and now was not the time to ask.

    At long last, their path led up against a stone door which did not look to have been disturbed for a very long while – although, since this was the route Mornik said he took before, looks were almost certainly deceiving here. The sneakiest of their dvergr companions, Mornik pressed his ear against the blocks that appeared to seal up the passage and listened. The others held their breath. After that seemingly breathless eternity, when Mornik was satisfied that the passage outside was clear, he put his back to the stone just off-center and pushed. Shockingly, the door swung open silently, as though it had been perfectly balanced for just such a circumstance.

    Inside the habitable portion, the passages of the cult’s holy place were shockingly bright when compared with the stronghold of the svartalfrs. The walls were done in white limestone, and the fire that burned in the sconces was of the ordinary color. Einarr glanced to Jorir for an explanation, but the dvergr merely shook his head and shrugged.

    It was Brandir who had the answer. “They’ve positioned themselves as the path to eternity and a way of ensuring survival through Ragnarok. They promised long-life, and cheating death, and for that their colors are white and gold,” he whispered. The fact that the same cult could have two such different faces was a puzzle to Einarr, but not a puzzle whose answer presented itself just yet.

    Now that they were inside, it was time to part ways. Jorir and Brandir, and Gheldram and Mornik, were to split off and head for the outer reaches of the temple to cause yet more chaos. Meanwhile, Einarr and the other men were to seek out the priestly offices where they held their female captives.

    As they parted ways, Jorir knelt before Einarr and hung his head. “My lord… forgive me. If it were not for me… for my conflicted loyalties, and my foolish obedience to a summons by a Thane no longer my own, none of you would have been captured, and Runa would not be in danger.”

    Einarr smirked. “What are you bowing your head for? Rise. I knew we would have to come here someday, and you warned me what insanity we would face when we fought the svartalfrs. I knew that you were as loyal to your dvergr kith and kin as you were to me.” He offered Jorir a hand and pulled him to his feet. “As much as you are my liegeman, you are also my friend. We’ll save Runa and the babe, both. Good luck out there.”

    “And to you.”

    The two clasped hands, and then the party split – Einarr and his company heading off to the left, Jorir and his to the right.

    There would be no hiding for their group: if they encountered cultists, the only thing they could do would be to kill them quickly. For that reason, Einarr was very glad to see that the ceilings had been built far taller here than in most dvergr architecture, to the point that they could actually all stand up straight. He preferred not to think too closely on why they might have done that, however: the only answer he got was of a she-troll, dead on the ground, and suddenly no longer a troll but a human woman. He shuddered as they rounded a corner.

    “What is it?” Kaldr kept his voice low.

    “Just… if the squiddies here are as… creative as the svartalfr ones, know that the creature you’re fighting may not be the creature you think you’re fighting.”

    He glanced over long enough to see a troubled look on Kaldr’s face: just as well. It had been a terrible thing to be surprised by.

    Mornik had given them a general idea of which way to go: after this passage, there would be another to their right, which would bring them into a long hallway lined with widely-spaced doors. Behind these doors were their female captives.

    Around that third corner they practically collided with the first patrol they had seen since they entered the secret passage. Einarr didn’t think: he reacted. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sinmora was out of her sheathe and embedded in the dvergr’s belly. Black blood oozed around the crossguard. He gave the blade a twist to free it and sprang back before the corrupted blood could reach his hands.

    As quickly as he dispatched that one, the other members of the patrol had not been caught quite so off-guard. One of them was occupied in holding off Thjofgrir’s powerful blows, while the last was dancing circles around Kaldr and Naudrek. Well. I can probably do something about that. He may have been preternaturally quick, but he still didn’t have eyes in the back of his head. Einarr swung Sinmora at the back of his legs, and while Sinmora bit deep it did not go down.

    That was when eyes did, in fact, open on the back of its head.

    “Aah!” Einarr turned his shout of horror into strength for his attack as he stabbed at the dvergr guardsman’s head. In the same moment, Kaldr and Naudrek buried their blades in its sides and it collapsed to the floor. Now all that was left was the one Thjofgrir fought.

     

     

    Previous

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.