The headless merminea walks out from the remains of the wall. A gash through the land shows exactly where Spenne sent him flying. As I watch, the dusty silhouette of its head regrows. It starts as a nub and slowly regenerates into the pointed snout shape unique to the merminea.

I thought flesh creatures had brains in their head which they couldn’t live without. Or was that just a few races? Each of Grímr’s possessed bodies has been like that, but maybe the mermineae are different.

It’s hard to tell if it’s hurt because of the shroud, but it walks without issue despite taking a direct hit from Spenne’s powerful lightning. Unlike what I expect, it doesn’t rush in for the attack immediately. Instead, the creature's new head points up toward the duo of new arrivals.

“This is what you want?” it gasps out with its gravelly voice. “You are so opposed to our people find a better home that you would rather an outsider slaughter the lot?” The merminea spits, but the action does nothing but blow out a plume of dust. “You refuse to bear the weight of their deaths yourselves.”

One of the two standing on the wall speaks up, his voice a similar hoarse croak. “Former Viisin Noriis, we did not bring the outsiders here to murder our brethren.” It turns toward Spenne, who is being surprisingly patient as they talk. I can’t tell if the creature is angry or not, because dust shrouds its face, but I’d say it’s pretty likely.

“We only intended your death,” it says, turning back to the first dust merminea.

“Former Viisin?” the creature below chuckles, a harrowing and painful sounding laugh. “I am Viisin until the day Kalma takes back her gift,” It says the word as if chewing on something foul.

Is that why their bodies are like this? Some gift from Kalma? If it causes your body to be in a constant state of decay, how could it be anything but a curse?

“And if you didn’t bring them for the slaughter of our kind, then why?”

The two… Viisin? They don’t reply. Rather, they attack immediately. Noriis is already looking down at the crevice. It’s too late to blind the Viisin from our purpose. A massive explosion of dust obscures the three as the duo sends the lone creature sprawling.

Spenne looks around confused, as if he never expected to be ignored while his rain of lighting continues in the background. A frown crosses his face and he looks after the trio of Viisin as if he’s been slighted.

We’ve already held around long enough. I nudge Grímr to take off again just as a heavy crack of thunder blows through me. Spenne is gone. Looks like he’s chasing after the Viisin.

In no time, we are speeding through the skies. We face no opposition. No birds of prey fly around, nor are there any Forvaal waiting to burn us from below. The vast thunderstorm has left the land a horrorscape.

The sky is dark, only illuminated by the constant flashes. Below, all that remains are corpses. Some are charred, some lay in pieces, some still burn from the fire. There is not much snow remaining. Instead, the ground is a muddy quagmire of dirt, water and blood.

I grip Grímr’s feathers tighter. Beyond the slaughter beneath us are numerous gouges through the land, likely a consequence of the fight between Viisin.

I don’t care for these beings. They’ve caused nothing but pain, worry and stress for us. I don’t like the mermineae, but this is still a hard sight to take in. Thousands of bodies lay dead, and we are leaving without returning their energy to the cycle.

I’m sure they’ll be fine. They aren’t buried after all. Once the storm clears, the avian hunters will have a feast for a good while.

Sudden, intense energy rushes through my body, down into Grímr. It is both incredible and painful. Too much heat even for me crashes through my body for an instant before it’s gone. The flash of light and rumbling thunder tell me we I was just hit by lightning.

It’s different, feeling it directly rather than through my inner flame. I feel myself trying to reach for that intensity and take it for myself. I yearn for that heat, but I know I’m far from that capability myself. Like Magma when I was a child, any more than an instant of that heat would be excruciating.

The lightning passed through Grímr as well, but he seems to have barely felt it. Or maybe he’s just putting on an act. I know he pushes his bodies further than they should naturally go. I hope he doesn’t hide his problems from me. It is only the two of us now.

It’s not likely Spenne will follow along with us. Even if he wants to, I don’t know if I’d want that. The áinfean is strong, immensely so. But if we meet anyone that might not have the same resistance to his electricity, he’s already proven the concerns of my teammates.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Maybe that’s being cruel. He did wait until the others were gone, as was asked of him, after all. There might be a way to work with him by giving him battles with no allies around.

Well, it’s not like we need to worry about that anymore. The path is closed and my team is on their way to kick-start the nations’ defence. Assuming they aren’t already aware of the threat. All Grímr and I need to do now, is find another way back.

The only options I can think of, are to follow the Alps to the south and eventually out west, near where the wasteland should be. The other option is to follow the trail of mountains north. I don’t doubt it’ll be a long travel, but we can fly; it’ll be far quicker than it otherwise might have been.

The constant zapping in the thunderclouds above and lightning strikes halt. I turn my head back curiously. Is Spenne finished? Did he kill the trio or did they kill him?

A massive dust plume rises from right above where the tunnel should be. A pit of dread rises in my chest at the sight. Ranked stone can resist the Viisin’s decay, right? It was mentioned a Forvaal’s sight wouldn’t be able to reopen it, but these Viisin are on a completely different level. Will it still hold them off?

Without warning, the storm unleashes a single, incomparable lightning arc down into the cloud of dust. A gust of air slams into us along with a deafening boom of thunder, sending us hurtling away. The beam continues to burn down on the earth for nearly ten seconds before it cuts off.

The air feels empty. The static that has accompanied us for a while now is simply gone.

There are no more dust clouds, nor are there more arcs of lightning. I hope that means the Viisin are dead. As concerning as Spenne is, I’d much rather have him around than the mermineae that just saw the death of many of their people at the hands of an ‘outsider’.

I don’t want to think about the scenario where the fighting hasn’t concluded and it’s simply fallen into the cavern below the surface. If they’ve reopened the tunnel in their brawl, my team will soon have more to worry about than the mermineae already down there.

If that’s the case, Grímr and I will have to figure something out before we can even consider wandering off on a blind search.

❖❖❖

I don’t know what to do.

We’ve come back to the burrow we used as a meeting point with the mermineae, but there is no sign of the clergy members. Even after waiting a full night, no one shows up.

I hoped to find them again to learn if the tunnel has reopened, but it doesn’t look like they’re coming. Are they dead? Or are they simply wiping their hands of us?

Not everyone on the slope died. As we flew further away from the centre of chaos, we passed by many mermineae fleeing down the Alps. It would have been great if we could just swoop down and question one of them, but there was no chance any of those running away would know.

If the Viisin broke through the tunnel, I hope the others made it far enough away before then.

I… wish we could have stayed together longer. It is obviously because of my resistance that we have been forced to split. I selfishly hoped they would stay with me despite the current concerns. It is unreasonable of me, I know, but I didn’t want them to leave me.

Grímr has stayed with me, and I’m grateful, but it also makes me feel guilty. He won’t be able to see his home for a long time because of me. How can I make it up to him?

“Solvei, we can’t wait around here any longer,” Grímr says.

“Then where do we go?” I ask. “How could we stop the rest of the mermineae from passing into the Alps?”

“I don’t know.” Grímr shakes his heavy head. “But we shouldn’t stay here. If any of those Viisin follow us… well, I don’t like our chances.”

My flames churn in my chest. If they act logically, then there’s no reason for them to come for us. We weren’t the ones to kill all those mermineae. We aren’t a threat to them. But I can’t help but feel they won’t see it the same way.

A lot of this whole situation doesn’t make sense to me. What was the purpose of sending us in at the same time as the attack by the Viisin? I’m assuming I understand this right; the Viisin duo that I didn’t hear the names of are part of the clergy, while the other, Noriis, is with the traitors.

For the closure of the tunnel to succeed, Noriis would have to be dead. So why didn’t they send in the other two to kill the Viisin first? Maybe they were so assured of themselves that they could kill Noriis before they could realise the tunnel was being sealed, but that is incredibly foolish.

The alternative is that they didn’t care about whether the path was closed or not, they just sent us in as a distraction or maybe in an effort to have us killed. But even that seems strange, the Viisin have enough strength that our presence — before Spenne — would mean nothing to them. Why not just kill us before any of this happened?

The clergy has shown they have the strength, so why don’t they simply take control of the entrance themselves?

No matter which way I twist their actions and motivations, there always seems to be a piece missing. I don’t know what to do now, but Grímr is right; we shouldn’t stay any longer.

“Alright, let’s go.” I climb to his back, and he spreads his long metal wings. “I want to know if the path is still open, but we can’t go back. Let’s go have a look at the mass migration of mermineae. They’ll be the first to learn if the tunnel is permanently closed.”

I’d hoped to put all this behind me. Once we did our part to stop the merminea invasion on my friends’ home, I’d wanted to just enjoy the experience of searching new lands. But my friends are still in danger. I can’t relax until I’m certain the threat is gone.

If I was strong enough, I would cross the Alps and stop the mermineae myself. But I’m not. I’ve gained a lot recently, but taking on an army would be too much. I’m still nowhere close to the level of Hund.

Even if I was strong enough, I couldn’t cross the Alps anyway. My mind won’t let me. My decisions, limited by nothing other than my nous.

An intense, stabbing pain assaults me. I clutch my hands over my eyes and nearly tumble right off Grímr’s back. Knives twist through my mind for an agonisingly long few seconds. When it finally abates, my mind is blank and I do nothing but stare into the sky.

“Are you okay?” Grímr’s concerned voice brings me back to focus.

I shake my head. “Yeah, I am now.”

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.”

This isn’t the first time experiencing this pain. It’s hit a few times, but never this bad. Hopefully, it’s nothing to worry about. We already have too much to focus on.

First, let’s find out if the mermineae are still moving to the Alps, then I can worry about lesser issues.