James West - Queen of the North

“What’s that, lad?” One Eye Thal asked, not coming any closer.

Erryn cocked her head, but could not command her feet to move any closer.

Zander’s quivering became worse. “ Out ….”

“I can end your suffering, brother,” Aedran said, the blade of his sword running with the first dim light of the rising moon. “Quickly and without pain. You’ve earned that much.”

Zander’s ruined face knotted, his lips rippled. “…. of ….” he gasped.

“He’s saying something,” Erryn said.

Aedran took a measured step closer to the fallen man. He curled the fingers of both hands around the hilt of his sword. “You’re a fine warrior. The glory you have heaped on Pryth and your clan has bought you a place of high honor at the feet of Ahnok. No man could ask or hope for more.”

Zander’s wolfskin cloak continued to shudder and bulge, as if his muscles had taken on a life of their own. His lips pressed tightly together on a worm, pinching it in half. The loose end fell to the snow and thrashed. He inhaled sharply through the devastation of his nose, making a high whistling sound. “.… m-me! ” he managed.

Aedran took a steadying breath and raised his sword.

Zander’s face strained. “ Get it out of me! ” As that cry echoed away into the night, he fell limp.

“Hold!” One Eye Thal burst out, halting Aedran’s sword from falling.

A black claw had sheared cleanly through the silver-gray wolf pelt covering Zander’s back. The man whimpered when an opposing claw joined the first. The rest of the men scrabbled back, faces stricken with revulsion.

Erryn stood fast, held as if by chains of frost. Through the numb terror seizing her heart, she realized the claws were actually pincers … so like those she had seen surrounding the mouth of the caterpillar that had dropped to her shoulder in the cold halls of Stormhold. But these are much larger!

Zander flailed, and it seemed as if he was trying to get to his knees. A high-pitched whistling sound, just at the edge of hearing, escaped his throat. The Prythians dropped their weapons to slap their hands over their ears. Erryn, still rooted to the spot, mimicked them, but the sound knifed effortlessly into her skull.

“ Joraxa! ” someone cried, barely surmounting the piercing wail.

Without warning, the Prythian ranks shattered, the jostling men rushing into the forest, some so fear-blinded that they slammed headlong into tree trunks. Some got back on their feet and ran on. Others lay still where they had fallen, groggy, moaning.

The shriek rose higher, bringing tears to Erryn’s eyes, making her bladder feel swollen. Her gritted teeth ached to the roots, seemed to vibrate in time with the sound coming from Zander.

Not Zander, she thought. The thing inside him!

The shrill screech cut off, leaving only the noise of men running for safety, floundering through deep snow, cursing in fright; men who until now had always gone eagerly to battle for her, for themselves, for gold and glory; her army of brave Prythians, fleeing, leaving her to her own fate. All had fled, save Aedran and One Eye Thal.

“What is it?” Erryn sobbed, as a flat, bloody skull the size of her open hand began to tear loose from Zander’s body. A cluster of eyes, glittering like wet obsidian, nested in the creature’s sloping crown. Though they seemed to stare blindly, she knew they had marked her. Below those eyes, the creature’s great pincers snapped together over a smaller, gnashing set.

“Joraxa,” One Eye Thal said, staring as if mesmerized, “the spawn of Gamanas, Keeper of the Grave.”

The tip of Aedran’s sword stabbed into the snow with a fateful clank. “I never believed the stories of the great iceworms. I never….” He trailed off, his face that of a man beaten.

“Kill it!” Erryn ordered.

One Eye Thal looked to her, his face serene. His voice was calm, soft, and absolutely resigned. “’Tis us who’ll die, for the venom of a Joraxa makes a man as stiff as stone … at first. Then the worm drags him deep into the frozen earth, below the roots of the hardest frost. And there, his flesh begins to melt, like hot tallow, until naught but bones remain-bones a Joraxa makes into cradles for its unholy brood.”

“Are you mad?” Erryn stumbled back from him, back from Zander, back from the thing gradually curling free from his skin. “You must fight. We all must fight! Kill it! ”

“There’s not much point fighting iceworms,” One Eye Thal said in that calm, dead voice.

“You must try!”

One Eye Thal’s lopsided smile was ghastly in the dappled light of the rising moon. “Soon, it will set to hunting us, following the heat of our blood as a hound follows the scent of a stag. If we run now, some of us might escape. All the rest will gather at the feet of Ahnok-”

Erryn’s slap rocked his head back, made his gray hair fly. She had not known she was going to strike him, but seeing some of that submissive light flee his good eye, she slapped him again, hard enough that her palm stung. The third time she drew her arm back, he caught her wrist.

“You’d have us fight our doom?” he demanded, spittle flecking his lips.

Erryn glanced at the creature. It had risen a foot out of Zander. She swallowed her fear. “I command it, you cockless old fool! Now unhand your queen, before I hew off your wilted stones!”

That seemed to sting him more than her slaps, and he looked to Aedran. “This brazen wench is the true Queen of Pryth, just as you said she’d be!” He shoved her into Aedran’s startled arms. “Take her, boy, and keep her safe. Run as fast and far as you can. If any of us survive, I’ll find you!”

Before Erryn knew what was happening, Aedran lifted her, his strong arms holding her to his chest like a nursing babe. Then he was plunging through knee-deep snow. One Eye Thal struck off in the opposite direction, howling a battle cry, but going wide around the iceworm.

The Joraxa was still coming out of Zander, birthing itself from the man’s corpse, rising into the frigid moonlight. Its pincers snapped together … spread wide … snapped together, the rhythmic jarring motion flinging shredded meat and blood.

Aedran wheeled around a cluster of naked birch trees and sank to his hips in an unseen hole. Erryn didn’t regret losing sight of the Joraxa. Cursing and straining, Aedran clambered up and out of the snowy trap, still holding Erryn to his chest. The only aid she could provide was to wrap her arms tight around his neck. Aedran changed course again, and Erryn’s breath caught when the Joraxa came once more into view.

By now, it had uncurled to half the height of a man, and was reaching higher in a waving, serpentine motion. Its segmented body was a collection of overlapping plates the color of old bronze-below the glaze of repulsed terror encasing Erryn’s mind, she knew that was not its true color, for Zander’s blood slathered the creature. Finger-length spines ran like hackles down the creature’s back. Dozens of insectile limbs were unfurling from its belly, each tipped with a stubby triad of clutching talons. It lifted its head and loosed another of those whistling shrieks. Erryn almost screamed when she heard an answering cry, and then another, and another. It’s calling to its kindred! Then, nearly too terrified to imagine the question, How many are there?

Erryn soon lost sight of the iceworm, though she could still hear it and the others, their cries punctuated by softer, barking chirps. Aedran quickened his pace, loping along in jouncing strides, his harsh gasps filling her ears.

At length, Aedran stumbled and collapsed on top of Erryn. Gasping an apology, he rolled onto his back in the snow. “Can you run?”