Demon-Killing Sword

21.1 Valkyrie

She chased after the armored man. The rams' horns on his head bobbed in time with the thudding of her own feet. Her armor clanked, heavy on her shoulders and loud in her ears.

"Wait!" Brunhild shouted, again. Why is he running?

He whipped around a corner. Brunhild gave chase. A low growl of frustration escaped her. She wasn't supposed to have to chase her suitor!

An armored chest blocked her way. Brunhild backpedaled, barely able to catch herself before she ran into the man.

"Oh! Whoa. Sorry," Gunnar said. He grinned at her.

She frowned at him and started around him.

Gunnar blocked her. "I beat you," he said.

Brunhild looked at him. Gunnar? Never.

He held up a helm. The helm. Rams' horns curled on either side of the blank faceplate. It was the same armor, too, she realized, as she took him in. The same tabard. The same boots. Her eyes moved slowly back to his face, to his perfectly coiffed hair, his soft, pale face, unmarred by sweat. For a long moment, she stared.

Oh. I see.

"It is destiny that we shall be wed," Gunnar said enthusiastically. He reached out to take her hand.

Brunhild flinched back. The ring. She still had the ring. She flipped it over in her hand, indecisive.

A hurt expression crossed Gunnar's face. His eyes met hers, pleading, sorrowful. He held his hand out, palm up. "Are you... still going to refuse me?"

She jammed the ring on her finger. You declared it. It's time to see this through.

"Unlike some, I am a woman of my word. I do not lie, steal... cheat." She hesitated, long enough that the strongest man would still avert his eyes.

Gunnar barely lasted a second. "I—I know you are," he mumbled.

"I will be true to my word and wed the man who defeated me in combat," Brunhild continued.

"G-good," Gunnar said. He closed his hand, still empty. "Then, shall we discuss the wedding? My mother..."

His voice was only noise. Brunhild stared past him, around the next corner.

If you have refused me, then what choice do I have?

Muninn dropped. She opened her eyes in time to land, heavily, in a bowl of branches. Her shoulder struck the ground. Pain exploded through her shoulder, down through her chest. Her breath caught. Her vision darkened.

Wind blew her hair back, shoved her against the floor. She caught a glimpse of the valkyrie, claws open, hooves outstretched for the landing, massive wings stretched wide. Two eyes, she noticed. The third one was gone, as if it had never been.

Something loomed over her. She turned her head, unable to move any more of her body. A smooth white surface formed a wall beside her. Confused, she stared at it while her eyelids fought her to close. What...?

"You can't trust them! You can't trust them."

"Dad," she sighed as she followed after him. Her voice was deeper, but not much. A boy's voice. The man ahead of her was older, but his frame was still narrow, his shoulders hiked. His hair was thinning and unkempt. A long white coat flowed as he stalked down the hallway.

"The voices, they tell me, they tell me so much, they say—" the man started. He stopped abruptly. His head tilted, and his eyes narrowed. "Do you hear that?"

"It's all in your head, Dad. It's not real." The words felt familiar in her mouth, an oft-repeated refrain.

He stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. There was a long silence. Then he spun and marched off again. "They're trying to stop me," he muttered to himself. "No, I won't listen."

She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows at him. "Dad."

The man slammed the door to his office open into the face of another man in a white coat. The second man stopped just in time to dodge, then glared at her. "Sorry," she muttered, and chased her father into his office.

Books piled high to the ceilings. Papers stuck out at odd angles from between the books and caked the few clear surfaces. A beaker bubbled. Odd greenish liquid dribbled over the papers beneath it, puddled there, overran and plopped thickly to the floor below. A dozen flasks of a dark, purplish gas laid strewn across the desk, which looked huge, though it was hard to tell under all the papers. An odd stench colored the office, thick, sweet, and organic. She wrinkled her nose. What is that?

"I'm so close," he muttered to himself. He reached out under his desk, and she finally located the source of the scent: a bowl of rotting fruit, hidden away in the darkness below. A dozen flies burst into the air as he grabbed a rotten apple. He raised the apple to his eye, careless of the flies that buzzed about his ears and nose, then slowly inserted a pin into its skin. A dark, brownish liquid oozed out where the pin pressed in. "So close," he whispered.

She stared. How was that supposed to help? Slowly, she took everything in. The beaker, still bubbling. The vials, forgotten. The stinking, rotten fruit. A profound sorrow settled over her shoulders. He's gone, isn't he? There's nothing left.

"Dad, I'm going to leave."

He rounded on her, and suddenly he seemed a thousand miles tall. Sharp talons bit into her shoulders as he gripped her tight with his free hand. Muninn felt a twinge of pain, sharp and blazing, and then she was back, the pin-pricks where the man's fingernails dug in the worst of the pain. For the first time, she got a good look at the front of him. Feathers peeked from under his collar as he swallowed, dappled brown and white. His eyes were prickled with gold.

"You can't leave," he snapped. His fingers bit deeper. She glanced at her shoulder, at his fingernails. They curved from his fingertips, dark and dangerous. An eagle's talons.

Her heart beat faster. "Dad, you didn't clip your nails? Pull your feathers? What if they find out?" We'll get sent back to the slums. They don't allow half-demons in the college!

Wild eyes zeroed in on her. He shook his head. "They know, they know, they know... everything. The world. The shape of it, there's. There's miasma everywhere. Miasma inside of us. Inside our food. We eat the fruit, and then, the miasma, it seeps... everywhere. Into your soul. We're poisoned. They're poisoning us all. I'll prove it. I'm the one."

She stepped back, out of his claws. Backed away slowly. "No, Dad. You're—you can't." He's gone. The miasma took him.

The man's eyes went empty. He turned away, back to his apple. Another pin pricked the wrinkled skin, another drop of thick brown liquid trickled down the surface.

"Goodbye," she said, her back to the door. He didn't so much as look up.

Something white caught her eye. She glanced to the side. Her face was reflected in a glass-fronted cabinet's surface—his face. Muninn stared at the cabinet, and Huginn stared back.