The fireteam met them two hours later at the apartment. Hackworth had called James and Serenity an Uber, surprising James, who’d thought they’d have to catch a bus. But it was clear that the major wasn’t a stickler for formalities; he saw his goal and went for it.
In this case, his pr...
2022-09-07 20:34:56 +0000 UTC View PostThey didn’t get to see the mayor.
Instead, Williams dropped them off outside the NYCEM Headquarters after getting waved through the security checkpoint. The place was a madhouse, with all kinds of army vehicles, news trucks, and emergency tents set up on the neighboring park space around ...
2022-09-07 20:34:20 +0000 UTC View PostJames lay on the couch staring up at the letters that hovered three feet from him. Futile questions ran through his mind. How was he seeing them? How did they track with his line of sight if he could interpose his hand and block them out? Pupil tracking? How did something so high-tech correlate w...
2022-09-07 20:33:46 +0000 UTC View PostThey got a ride back to Serenity’s apartment from a grateful survivor who called their mom to come pick them up. James passed out in the back, leaving Serenity to fend off the excited questions from the teenaged girl in the passenger seat.
He awoke when they pulled up outside the laundrom...
2022-09-07 20:33:11 +0000 UTC View PostJames piled into the oncoming gremlins. Swung his skillet once but didn’t bother drawing it back. He ran on a carpet of dread bodies, small, scaled forms that shifted underfoot, making purchase hard, making it so that his blind charge turned into a dive.
His aura flared to life. He barged...
2022-09-07 20:32:37 +0000 UTC View Post“Shit!” James pounded the steering wheel. “Shit shit shit shit!”
Serenity whipped about, trying to keep all the gremlins in view. They were all over the car. Slamming their fists against the windows, head butting them, causing small cracks to spider into existence.
“They’r...
2022-09-07 20:31:55 +0000 UTC View PostShadows were starting to lengthen. It was cold. James pulled the caramel-furred coat tighter about himself and tucked his chin into his neck. Kicked at a berm of filthy ice that lined the edge of the pavement. Looked around.
The city was changing fast. And in only twenty-four hours...
2022-09-07 20:31:19 +0000 UTC View PostJames yanked on the cargo pants Serenity had left in a pile by the bathroom door, and still soaked ran into the living room.
Serenity was yanking open drawers in the TV stand, and pulled out a compact, dark gray pistol. With quick efficiency she ejected the magazine, slammed it back home, a...
2022-09-07 20:30:44 +0000 UTC View PostThe next hour was spent watching the news, checking social media, and fighting off exhaustion for as long as possible. Little changed, though the outbreak of mystery dog attacks was the main story on every station and news site. Any and every theory was put out there, ranging from frequencies bea...
2022-09-07 20:30:10 +0000 UTC View PostJames reread his personal statistics. They reminded him of the Dungeons and Dragons game he’d played back in high school. But none of the rest made any sense.
“Definitely Catholic,” murmured Serenity. “All this miracle and benediction shit? Man am I relieved to have been born into t...
2022-09-07 20:29:19 +0000 UTC View PostJames emerged smoothly from his sleep. He was propped up on a clean bed. There were people around him, doctors, nurses, but they were paying attention to other people. He was groggy. He’d been given anesthesia, he realized. Bright lights overhead, that old, familiar smell. An Emergency Room. 2022-09-07 20:28:37 +0000 UTC View Post
60,000-year countdown has ended
Nemesis 1 released
Please acknowledge
James blinked blearily and swiped his gloved hand at the glowing letters. They didn’t disappear. He frowned, turned away, and they tracked with his line of ...
2022-09-07 20:27:44 +0000 UTC View PostThe temples burned as if starved for fire. The black wood cracked and warped and erupted into flames that were more blue than anything else, going up so quickly that in moments all four buildings were wreathed in shimmering curtains of azure.
There was surprisingly little heat until the fla...
2022-09-07 20:11:18 +0000 UTC View PostThere were far fewer people living in Kaldrborg than Skadi had expected. They seemed to haunt their own settlement, proud yet reclusive, scornful yet melting away from all confrontations. For the most part, they remained hidden within their homes, while their remaining warriors were put to work d...
2022-09-07 20:08:01 +0000 UTC View PostWhat followed was the longest day of Skadi’s life.
She’d suffered moments of bleaker anguish. Riki’s murder as Kalbaek burned. Yri’s death. Finding Begga, Kofri, and Ulfarr arranged amongst the Kráka dead. But those moments had been acute and then fallen away, giving her time to re...
2022-09-07 20:05:46 +0000 UTC View Post“No,” Skadi called out. “This is between you and I. Leave my friends out of it.”
Afastr smiled. “You are the one who involved them. Who made this all so complicated? But if you wish. I am nothing if not considerate of my wives.”
Skadi began to pick her way toward him. “S...
2022-09-07 20:04:53 +0000 UTC View PostDauðakoss.
Skadi took a step back. Her uncle’s words were loud in her ears as if he spoke to her directly from the past: “None may parry or block its blows. It cleaves through swords, shields, chain, flesh, and bone. All will fall before it.”
“We’ve lost,” she cr...
2022-09-07 20:02:50 +0000 UTC View PostThe space beyond the Raven’s Gate swarmed with Kaldrborg warriors. They hadn’t been ready for Aurnir’s explosive entrance, but reacted with violent surety, screaming their defiance and throwing themselves at the half-giant with suicidal bravery.
Aurnir bellowed in return, the sheer vo...
2022-09-07 20:01:53 +0000 UTC View PostThere was no time to think, to weigh the moment and decide on the best course of action. She had to decide, make a choice, and own it with everything in her spirit.
To run with the others to do battle with Afastr? To turn and face the half-giants? Or to continue sprinting toward the walls?<...
2022-09-07 20:00:31 +0000 UTC View PostThe army marched along the mountain road all afternoon and into the evening. Almost five hundred strong, they formed a huge snake five men wide, many sharing the weight of ladders that extended down the flanks, eight or ten men resting its length on their shoulders.
Skadi walked close to th...
2022-09-07 13:14:31 +0000 UTC View PostThey arrived at camp as the sun was dipping down toward the mountain peaks, weary and exhausted but fired with such bleak determination that Skadi felt nothing but scorn for her physical frailty.
The jarls had not been idle. A great swathe of trees had been stripped in a raw crescent about ...
2022-09-07 13:13:52 +0000 UTC View PostSkadi felt her true thread, her life-cord, bend as the norns somewhere far away placed their shears about it.
Hjörþrimul drifted into view once more, every line of her eager and burning with anticipation.
Skadi lowered her chin. Stared hard at the linnorm, Natthrafn held down and aw...
2022-09-07 13:12:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe cliff face uncoiled.
Breath caught in her throat, a storm rushed through her mind, and Skadi took a step back, drawing Thyrnir from her belt without thinking about it.
Sinuous curves, glossy scales of slate blue, spines running down the central ridge, its stomach great bands of pe...
2022-09-06 12:51:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe challenge lay in the dying of the day. Their original plan had been to travel south immediately after scouting out Kaldrborg, traveling through the wilderness at night with a linnorm on the loose was suicide. But nor had they brought equipment with which to survive the cold without being on t...
2022-09-06 12:49:36 +0000 UTC View PostThey got out of there fast.
Glámr led the way, rushing further up the mountainside in the hopes that the linnorm would naturally move down the slopes instead, and then they ran at a fast jog for an hour, wending their way along barren rock-strewn expanses, through gulleys and leaping the o...
2022-09-06 12:48:34 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone,
We're drawing to a close on Skadi's Saga. The first arc will finish this Friday (9/9/22) with Chapter 116. I will then transition to Dawn of the Void, which h...
2022-09-05 23:16:34 +0000 UTC View PostHer companions were ready before dawn. Aurnir rose to bid them goodbye, and it took Skadi a while to make him understand why he couldn’t come. Morose and uneasy, he watched them leave the camp, pacing back and forth as they followed the stone beach to crack in the escarpment through which they ...
2022-09-05 14:13:50 +0000 UTC View PostEven as Skadi stood amongst the rest of the crew on the Sea Wolf another beacon kindled to life farther up the coast, a crimson flicker a score of miles away.
“A curse on that man,” said Marbjörn, his frustration sharp. “Is there nothing he’s not thought of?”
Skadi...
2022-09-05 14:12:55 +0000 UTC View PostBaugr arrived upon the Wave Flame late that afternoon. The longhall yet gave off a plume of ashen black that wound its way up into the gray sky, so that there was no surprise on the Havaklif jarl’s face as his dragon ship drifted up to the pier. He was followed by the Cold Dread 2022-09-05 14:11:34 +0000 UTC View Post
When at long last Marbjörn deemed the longhall ready, dozens of warriors raised burning brands and approached the stacked piles of kindling.
Skadi had watched in a stupor, the night seemingly endless, unable to act, to think, to move. It felt as if her grief filled the cup of her heart to ...
2022-09-02 13:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post