Astrid's Wings: Varangian Descendants Book II Read online

  Astrid's Wings

  Varangian Descendants Book II

  K. Panikian

  Copyright © 2021 K. Panikian

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  For my parents.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part II

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Bonus: “Found gate. Bringing tigers.”

  Glossary of Gods and Monsters

  About The Author

  Books In This Series

  Books By This Author

  Prologue

  I woke up early in my cot in the women’s dormitory. Staring at the ceiling, I felt the familiarly scratchy sheets against my legs. Weak morning sunlight lit the room with angled beams of gray as particles of suspended dust danced in the air. Most of the cots near me were occupied still—I heard snores and rustles and smelled soap. I blinked slowly as I gazed up, wondering if we would all be dead by nightfall.

  A hiss from the doorway focused my attention and I saw Cato, my younger brother, urgently waving at me. Silently, I climbed out of bed and pulled on my boots. I’d slept in my clothes the night before, expecting the early summons.

  Pulling the door closed gently behind, I followed Cato as we crept past the other dorms in the dark hall. His face pale and his eyes darting, Cato swallowed convulsively as we walked; the sound was liquid and loud. I asked about our older brother, Bard. Cato shrugged and said he hadn’t seen him.

  We strode into the dining hall and my father gestured at me from a table by the unlit fireplace. He had his swords strapped to his belt and his chain mail on. I walked to him and studied his face—his gaze was alert and his jaw was set. It would happen today.

  THE summer breeze felt warm on my face as I lifted my eyes to check the cloudy sky above the citadel. Along the stone walls and in the keep doorway, anxious faces watched me. I stood in the bailey—the five cauldrons of Greek fire arranged in front of me, their black, viscous contents reflecting no sunlight. I fingered the sleeves of my tunic, plucking at a loose string, and then tucked my hands behind my back to hide their trembling.

  The heavy, wooden doors of the stronghold stood closed tightly. I knew anyone from a nearby village not already inside its walls was dead.

  Outside the citadel, I could hear the pounding sounds of the demonic army approaching. The ground shook from the weighty stomps of the todorats. I took a deep breath, inhaling the pine and sulfur scents of the cauldrons and watched for the signal. The five fire elementals, standing high on the fortress’s walls, waited patiently.

  On the battlements and in the bailey the soldiers fidgeted in rows, their chain mail rustling.

  From the top of the stronghold’s tower, Elder Octavia raised her arms. Her white robe fell back from her pale hands and she pointed her staff to the east. She shot a fork of sapphire blue lightning in that direction, splitting it to multiple smaller bolts a moment later. Each bolt impacted the earth in a series of small explosions. She’d marked the targets for the fire mages.

  I grasped the air surrounding the five vats with my magic, holding it still and firm. Slowly, I lifted the cauldrons, the blue filaments of my elemental control enveloping the containers and cradling them. As I raised my arms, the cauldrons rose higher, soaring into the sky and over the walls of the citadel. Taking a deep breath, I felt my hold over the bombs stretch as thin as a pale blue spiderweb, though the slender threads nestled as strong as iron in my grip.

  In a sudden pulse of magic, I propelled the bombs fast and hard in five different directions, over the heads of the surrounding enemy troops.

  The fire mages on the wall raised their hands, sparks flashing, and lit the cauldrons in midair. The explosions deafened me momentarily and I staggered back, clapping my hands to my ears. The sky turned red with flames, and then black with smoke as a huge conflagration raged outside of the citadel walls.

  Catching my balance, I ran to the stone stairs and climbed quickly.

  Standing at the top of the wall, an archer on either side of me, I looked out over the horde that had come to kill us all. And I watched the monsters burn.

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Alaska in the summertime is incredible. The sun is warm, the sky is endlessly bright and blue, and every living thing—plant, animal, and person—blooms vigorously.

  I’d gotten up early to hike Flattop with my brothers before work, but both bailed on me. I heard them come home pretty late through our thin, connecting walls, so I wasn’t surprised. Cato probably dragged Bard to a movie. My younger brother was obsessed with movies now.

  I went anyway though, strapping on my bear spray, a gift from my best friend, Verena, or Very. I caught the bus downtown that runs up to the trailhead in the summer, smiling at the tourists sitting around me.

  I’d lived in Anchorage now for five months and I loved it. I biked to my job at the coffee hut every day from the duplex I shared with my brothers. I made drinks for people who drove up to my window and gave me money. My life included friends to meet at bars and concerts, for hikes and fishing trips. I wore pretty clothes in pretty colors, my hair was always clean and sweet-smelling, and I studied online whenever I could, trying to earn my GED.

  On Very’s suggestion, I told everyone that I recently left my super strict parents who raised me deep in the Alaska bush in a survivalist commune. Because of them, I’d never been to school or done anything in the outside world. It was sort of true.

  Actually, I grew up in another world. A long time ago, almost a thousand years, my ancestors fought as part of a Varangian cohort deployed from Constantinople to Rus to guard the Volga trade route. The guard unit, led by a stratego, had a hundred or so soldiers, and was accompanied by the soldiers’ wives and children and their servants, along with horses and some small livestock.

  They set up a large encampment on the steppe, building corrals for the horses and weirs to fish in the river. The soldiers trained in the tall grasses and ranged up and down the river, guarding traders. The women kept the camp, chasing chickens and children.

  Then a meteor blast hit the camp and transported it to another world. The cohort vanished from the history books.

  The portal world, which the ancestors named Terra Novum, was full of demons—the besy—and magic. The Varangians adapted to the new world as quickly as they could and Belobog, the White God, blessed them with their own magic to help them survive and prosper.

>   Per our Elders, the first several hundred years on Terra Novum were an incredibly dark time, full of starvation and death. Then, with the aid of the benevolent gods, the ancestors began to establish a foothold in the new world. Our numbers grew and we built a great stone citadel as protection against the monsters.

  We learned to control our magical powers. The Elders catalogued four different classes of magic users and trained people to use their powers offensively and defensively. The augurs, like my father, could See things in the past, present, and future. The strikers, like my older brother, Bard, could shoot energy bolts and launch projectiles, or generate superhuman strength. My younger brother, Cato, was a zhakhar, an illusionist. And I was an elemental—the air was mine to command.

  We did such a great job beating back the demons, in fact, that starting a few hundred years ago, we actually left the citadel and began establishing farms and villages deeper in the steppe.

  That was where we went wrong, maybe. Our encroachments caught the attention of Chernobog, the Black God, god of the besy. He decided the Varangians should be erased from Terra Novum.

  Chernobog gave new powers to Abaddon, the great bes commander, and he formed a massive demonic army to destroy the citadel. The army, full of bauks, todorats, balachko, psoglavs, and azhdaya, marched on the citadel in a horde of fangs and claws.

  Abaddon burned our villages as he marched, forcing everyone to pull into the stronghold. My father, a soldier, was already garrisoned there and I’d grown up within those stone walls. He and my brothers got ready to fight the monsters on the battlefield. They had swords and bows and magic, but it wouldn’t be enough.

  The mages’ council, the Varangians with the secret of Greek fire, produced five enormous cauldrons of the black explosive, enough to demolish the stone citadel down to sand if it was mishandled. The mages asked me, the strongest air elemental in the keep, to launch the cauldrons over the walls at the bes army.

  I did it. It was an incredible demonstration of air elemental power, maybe the strongest use in our history. When the mages lit the Greek fire midair, it decimated Abaddon’s forces. Fully two-thirds of his demons turned to ash that day. Abaddon retreated.

  The villagers sheltering in the citadel went back to their homes. The soldiers remained, ready to fight Abaddon if he returned. My father, my brothers, and I scouted in the countryside. We occasionally found and killed bauks or psoglavs, the remnants of Abaddon’s forces, disoriented and lost. But mostly we returned to a peaceful existence.

  Then the attacks on the villages started all over again. Abaddon had rebuilt some of his forces. His command over the lesser besy seemed undiminished. That kind of demonic control was unheard of in our thousand-year history. Rumors abounded that far off, in the mountains to the east, Abaddon and Chernobog were creating an enhanced form of bes, smarter and stronger.

  Some soldiers, like Bard, wanted to travel east, find the source of the new power, and stop it. The Elders though, were too concerned with the villages and the citadel. They didn’t want to send any soldiers away and lose the stronghold’s defensive power.

  One day, while we were tracking a bauk in the forest, my family and I were transported back to the original home world. A meteor strike on Earth created a portal between the worlds again, right where we happened to be standing. Through some adventures and misadventures, we traveled back and forth and we helped Very and her cousins, Julian and Theo, prevent Abaddon from invading Earth through the open portal.

  My father, Rurik, chose to return to Terra Novum before the portal closed again, but I and my brothers remained on Earth. Very and her family helped us create new lives, but I knew our part in Abaddon’s war was not over. Mesyats, the Moon God, haunted my dreams with visions of fire and blood and a leering minotaur face.

  I knew Abaddon was preparing to march again.

  AS I hiked the winding trail, the gray buildings of mid-town Anchorage below and the inlet sparkling beyond, I thought about what to do. I hadn’t told anyone yet that Mesyats was in my dreams. I knew that Cato and Bard were enjoying their new modern lives to the fullest. Very and her partner, Owen, were actually in Canada at the moment with Owen’s family.

  It was only a little while since we were fighting for our lives in the snowy Ural Mountains of Russia, but everyone was trying to move on. I didn’t know how to tell them that we were still in the thick of it. Or maybe only I was.

  Pausing at an overlook, I pulled the water from my pack. The fireweed abounded in purple blooms in front of me. I inhaled deeply, watching the bees stumble drunkenly from blossom to blossom.

  My cell phone rang and I checked the screen. It was Very’s Uncle Alex. Of course. Uncle Alex was an augur, just like my father.

  “Hi, Uncle Alex.” I tried to sound chipper.

  “Astrid, my dear,” came the thin voice over the line. Alex was well past his first century mark, long-lived for a Varangian, and apparently, incredibly long-lived for this time and place. “I have been seeing your face in my visions all week. You are worried. Can I help?”

  I sighed. “No, Uncle Alex. I’m having bad dreams, that’s all. Probably nightmares leftover from the winter.”

  Alex paused for a long beat. “I’m here if you want to talk,” he finally said. “This is not only your burden.”

  He hung up and I had a feeling he knew exactly what I was seeing in my nightmares.

  I made it to the summit and rested for a long time. I sat in the sun on a rock, looking out over the inlet, and watched the tide fill in the mudflats far below. I could see the beginning of the Aleutian arc across the water, its crags and volcanic peaks covered in snow even in the height of summer.

  A bald eagle circled lazily on the air currents streaming off the mountains. I could see the elemental filaments dancing in its wake.

  Closing my eyes, I acknowledged to myself the true source of my hesitation to involve Very and her family in Abaddon’s war again. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to burden them; I knew I needed their help. I wasn’t telling them about my dreams because I didn’t want to see Julian again.

  On Terra Novum, women had high status. We were encouraged to be fighters, or farmers, and to have lots of babies. Most of the women in my barracks at the citadel already had a couple of children, all back home being raised by grandparents and aunts and uncles. Usually, a woman didn’t settle down with one partner until she reached middle age.

  But I didn’t have a mother anymore, waiting to raise my babies, and my father never expressed a desire for grandchildren. So, I had partners, but I kept things short-term and I paid attention to timing and phases so there would be no babies.

  I never felt tempted to form a serious attachment; I never met anyone that challenged me to figure out my path in life. Did I want to stay in the citadel and remain a soldier, like my father? Did I want to find a village and build a home and a farm, like my mother ultimately decided to do? Did I want to study more and follow the path of an Elder? I was in no hurry to decide.

  Then my old life ended and I came through the portal and met Julian. Julian was tall and strong and ruggedly handsome, and oh, he made my heart race.

  He had powerful Varangian magic and he was smart too. He explained things carefully, with his deep voice and his kind eyes. He dazzled me and every time I talked to him, I felt overwhelmed with new ideas and new feelings. I wanted to share with him every thought in my brain. I wanted to lay my head on his shoulder and listen to him tell me about the music he liked, the art that moved him, the books he enjoyed, and everything else that made him whole.

  He fought courageously in Russia and he loved his family like I loved mine. I sensed, the more time I spent with him, that maybe he would be it for me—my end point, or my starting point, if I let romantic thoughts sweep me away.

  But after we closed the portal in the mountains and I got up the nerve to talk to him about my feelings, he told me that he wasn’t interested. And he left. He went back to his life in California.

  It was
the first time I let myself be vulnerable with a man like that. The rejection was unexpected and embarrassing and, after I walked away and let the impact sink in, it was heartbreaking.

  In retrospect, several months removed from my immediate misery, I understood what happened in a different context. Julian didn’t owe me anything. Just because I had a crush, or felt myself in love, didn’t mean he did. He barely knew me.

  Plus, when we first came through the gate and started working with Very, Julian, and Theo, I was not a nice person to be around. I felt scared and uncertain and I wanted desperately to stay, but I didn’t know how I could find a place for myself away from Terra Novum. I was difficult, maybe too difficult for him.

  Now though, I needed to be strong. I was a full-grown woman. I’d commanded troops in battle and killed demons with my bow. I couldn’t let my hurt feelings overrule my common sense. I needed to let it go and treat the situation like an old infatuation. Hopefully, when we saw each other again, my heart would agree. I needed his and his family’s help.

  It was time to talk to my brothers and tell them about my dreams of Abaddon’s resurgence. Our reprieve was over. It was time to share the truth with Uncle Alex as well, and let him rally Very’s family once again. It was time to return to the war.

  Chapter 2

  After my hike, I biked to work and then texted Bard and Cato, telling them we needed to talk that night. Cato said he’d bring over pizza after he got off his shift. He worked at a restaurant in midtown. Of the three of us, he’d been the most enthusiastic about learning to drive and he’d gotten his license a few weeks ago. He loved running errands and was trying to talk Bard into learning too.

  Bard worked as a laborer at a construction company. Mostly he laid bricks and did basic demolition work. He came home messy and sweaty every night but he seemed to like it. I knew he liked working outside.