The Lost Runes Saga [Epic Fantasy]

THIRTY-THREE

Vidar's first thought was that his essence, invading Leio's heartwell, was killing her. He placed a hand on her chest and closed his eyes. No, it wasn't killing her. It was driving the ooze essence from her body, and venom followed. Her screams and thrashing were by-products of it all. Pain. By now, Vidar knew pain well, and this young woman must've been experiencing some of the worst imaginable.

He couldn't see the pain, but his mind was able to follow the signs in her body, how the essence flowed through the strands of power out from her heartwell and into her body, pushing on the ooze essence. The foreign substance from the oozehound did not relent. It fought back, and what little essence he'd taken from himself ran out in mere moments. The dragon's essence was long gone.

When Vidar opened his eyes, the sheen on her body, which he had first mistaken for sweat, had turned grayish, mixing with the venom penetrating her skin. Vidar raised his voice so that her father and Mira heard him over the young woman's wailing. "I need more essence!"

Tyr shouted back, struggling to hold his daughter down on the bed, ignoring his own agony as his hands must've burned from touching the ooze staining her shoulders.

"What is essence?" Mira asked, her voice high and shrill. Her eyes were wide as she half turned toward the door, as if she thought he wanted her to fetch something from outside. A good idea.

"Mira," he said. "First, find me something flat to paint on, something I can hold in my hand."

He turned to Tyr. "I'm going to draw essence from your legs to start with. I'll need to give it to your daughter, or she won't make it."

"Anything," Tyr said, sitting down so his legs pointed forward on the floor, not even questioning what it would do to him.

"You will lose feeling in your legs, and you won't be able to move them when I'm done," Vidar explained, pulling Tyr's breeches up to reveal pale legs covered in dark hair.

"Anything," Tyr repeated.

Vidar put his palm on one leg, draining essence, before moving on to the other and drawing that as well. He was careful not to drain too much, or it would reach into Tyr's chest, just as it had with Torbjorn, killing him instantly. With more essence within the styrka rune, he returned his attention to Leio. Vidar closed his eyes and filled the heartwell once again, the new essence from her father mingling with what little remained of Vidar's own.

Mira rushed up to him, a small wooden plate in her hand, and shoved in his face. "Here!"

"That'll work," Vidar said, snatching it and rummaging through his satchel, coming out with red paint and a small brush. He did his best to focus and keep the piece of wood still on his leg as he drew another styrka rune.

Vidar spoke to Mira again without looking up. "We need more people, as many as you can fit in here. Leio is fighting against the venom, but she's losing, and without more essence, she won't survive much longer. The loss of feeling in those I drain is not permanent!" he added as Mira ran out.

He wasn't sure if she'd heard him.

People entered the house in quick succession, and it grew crowded as Vidar explained what he needed from them. They didn't understand, but none hesitated. It was a grim scene with black ooze bubbling out of Leio, the only sound that of her constant screams. Vidar pulled essence from legs and arms, drawing it into the new styrka rune he'd painted on the plate, pulling it through his own body, then out into Leio's heartwell, using the burned-in rune in the palm of his other hand.

Having so much essence from different people passing through his system made his head spin. Some held more, others less, and he marveled at how each of them was a little different. He could not tell how exactly, but the different essences were distinct from one another. What he was doing was a far cry from healing, pushing human essence into this poor young woman, forcing ooze essence out. It looked horrifying, as if she was bleeding ink from every part of her body. Once a person had no more essence to give, they were carried out and replaced with a new willing participant. They all stared at Leio, but none shied back from what needed doing.

Leio's heartwell expanded from its shrunken state, filling up with human essence, to the point of becoming almost a perfect circle, like Vidar's. His own had regenerated a little more dragon's essence, but he didn't use it, not yet. Leio's chest pulsed with human essence, but each inch won over the foul ooze tainting her body made her wail.

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It was a slow process, the most horrific part of it when the essence moved upward into her head. When the invading essence was forced out, it left through the skin, but also from her nose and mouth, making her choke on it, and her ears and even her eyes, like Leio cried black tears of pain. The stink of oozehounds filled the small house to the point Vidar thought they would have to burn the building afterward.

Little by little, Leio's skin returned to its original color, a tone a little darker than Vidar's own. It took over thirty people to gather enough essence to free her from the oozehound's grasp. The screaming stopped, which Vidar thought was a good sign at first, but then he realized the essence in her body grew sluggish, and then stopped. Something was wrong.

"She's not breathing! What's happening?" Tyr asked, leaning in to keep his face close to his daughter's.

Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, blank, void of life.

"No, no, no. After everything I've gone through, you don't get to die," he mumbled.

Some human essence remained in her heartwell, stuck with nowhere to go with the heart no longer pumping it around her body. Vidar ignored it and pulled once again from his heartwell, taking every bit of the dragon's essence available to him. It flowed into Leio's heartwell with a life of its own, and grabbed onto the strands of power stretching throughout the heartwell, like the branches of a tree. Around and around it went, following the strands into her heart. The rainbow-colored essence disappeared into the heart. Then, a breath later, sparks of life returned.

A heartbeat thudded. Leio drew in a gasping breath, coughing up black ooze, like she'd been submerged under water and almost drowned. Her eyes regained the spark of life, closed, and then fluttered open, seeing him for the first time. One corner of her mouth tugged upward, then her consciousness fell away.

Worried, Vidar put his hand back but found her heart still beating, and her breath came in nice and even. She was alive and well. He looked up at Tyr. "She's sleeping."

Cheers broke out as Vidar fell back onto the floor, panting before rolling away from the bed. The black ooze, having dribbled down to the floor, sank into the mud, defeated.

"How can I ever repay you?" Tyr said.

Mira stood in the doorway, holding people back now that there was no need for more essence.

"A little food and water would be nice," Vidar croaked, well and truly spent. The wounds around his body itched, and every movement pulled on the stitches.

"We'll prepare a feast!" Mira shouted, clapping her hands.

It was dark again, and Vidar sat in a larger building, a communal hall of sorts. Fires burned bright and warm at either end of a long table, seating at least forty, giving warmth to the place.

They ate a hearty meal of thick sausages, wizened potatoes out of storage, and eggs fried dripping with fat, even some carrots, small but full of flavor. A veritable feast. People talked and laughed while Vidar regaled them with the tale of how he came face to face with ten, or perhaps twenty, oozehounds and not only survived but bested them all. The strong ale these people brewed made his belly warm, his cheeks flushed, and he spoke with perhaps too loose a tongue when he painted the scene of a night full of prowling monsters beat back by bouts of fire born out of masterful rune craft. Though he never mentioned where he learned of this ancient power, he didn't think to hide how the flame shield was a product of him combining two runes for a novel effect.

They placed more ale before him. People slapped his back, and someone squeezed his shoulder, sending fresh pain through the wound. It brought Vidar out of his stupor, and he blinked, coming to a realization. He'd combined two different runes. In the heat of battle, he'd made something new. It was a dangerous thing, of course, and Alvan would have stern words for him, no matter how dire the situation had been. But he'd done it. He'd combined two runes to create something new.

The possibilities were many with this discovery. Through combining runes, marvels were now not only possible, but almost guaranteed.

One pairing jumped out to him that very instant. His mind went to the guards posted throughout the little village, doing their duty of holding back any attacks from more oozehounds or other monsters. The villagers talked of others, several kinds. None of them sounded pleasant, and Vidar hoped he'd never come face to face with any of them. If he had anything to say in the matter, he'd never leave Halmstadt again after this.

"Bring me a shield," Vidar said. "One of those wooden ones the soldiers are holding."

"Soldiers?" Mira said with a laugh. "They're just folks like us. No soldiers here, not outside the wall."

One was brought to him nonetheless, and Vidar painted two runes upon it, in two separate circles, a line between them. He triggered one and then leaned the shield against the wall. Then he touched the rune he'd triggered, and his arm up to his elbow went numb before he pulled away. He nodded to one man at the bench.

"Throw something at it," he said.

"Throw something?" Karl asked. He was a big man, with hulking shoulders from years of logging the forest. It wasn't his house that had burned down, but he didn't live far from it. For now, he, his wife, and children had escaped into the safety of the larger village. "Throw what?"

With a shrug, Vidar said, "Anything."

Karl emptied his cup and threw it at the shield. A bluish, shimmering, translucent barrier appeared in front of the wood, protecting it and extending past the rim of the small shield.

"The styrka rune feeds into the algiz rune," Vidar mumbled, nodding to himself. He turned and shouted, "Bring me more shields, and I'll make sure you stand better protected against any monsters who dare approach your village!"