Chapter 4 | Sven

Chapter 4

Sven

I FELT AN INTENSE NEED to protect Ravinica. Did she need my protection? Probably not. She would get it anyway, because it was in my nature to safeguard what I loved.

Damon Halldan was a nuisance, nothing more. For now. She was right—there were more important things to worry about. But the new initiate from Selby Village was playing with fire. He parted ways with Ravinica when she was a bog-blood. She had grown in their time apart.

Did Damon not realize she had no less than five stalwart defenders ready to take up arms in her name? Did he not realize the odds were sorely stacked against him, and any of us would kill in a moment’s notice if we felt she was truly threatened by him?

It was a fool’s game, played by children and ignorant whelps who didn’t know what they were doing. Vikingrune Academy was not Selby Village. They were not kids anymore, though Damon insisted on acting like one.

As I’d told her, he would need to be dealt with if this shit didn’t stop soon. And while I would not act on my own without say-so from Ravinica first, I could not guarantee others in her pack would resist.

Namely, Magnus Feldraug. The dead man scared even me , with his soulless eyes and unreadable demeanor and body full of self-inflicted scars. He had already killed two students at Vikingrune. Two women, no less, which showed he did not discriminate in his violence or loathing.

What if Feldraug learned of the blood-bucket debacle? Surely he would take action, as he had against Astrid Dahlmyrr and her minion when they put Ravinica in Eir Wing.

Granted, that situation was different. Astrid’s gang had physically harmed and tried to make a statement with my little menace. The only statement it ended up making was that Ravinica was not to be trifled with, or you’d end up with a snapped neck or a bloodless shell of a body.

Had Magnus been punished for those actions? Hardly. Hel below, the bastard boy had been given a promotion! He’d been named Drengr of the first-year initiates, a warrior, just this past week. It was a controversial move for the academy, giving the highest honor of the initiate class to a known killer. Many students hated it.

Making Magnus Drengr would embolden others to do despicable things they normally wouldn’t.

I wondered if that wasn’t Gothi Sigmund’s plan. With the elven portal now open, by Ravinica, and the gates of Vikingrune closed, we were reaching a new era of martial law.

Survival of the fittest was no longer a way of teaching. It was a necessity. Sigmund was priming us for a potential war with the elves, which meant breeding killers out us. Magnus Feldraug was a shining example of how to leverage those violent traits to become something “great.”

I shivered at the thought as I made my way toward Hersir Axel Osfen’s hovel in the northwest quadrant of the underground tunnels. His location was buried below Tyr Meadow and Gharvold Hall, the garrison. In that region, the halls and tunnels opened into a wide expanse—a vast cave system in the mountains with attached pillars and hills.

The cave under Gharvold had likely taken centuries to carve out by our predecessors. The cave-plain was a marvel of ingenuity, geology, and even architecture.

I didn’t have much to report to Osfen. My scouting duty, which had lasted two days and nights out in the bitter freeze, had come up fruitless. No sightings of elves near the academy aboveground. The snow fell like a tsunami from the sky, nearly drowning and suffocating me multiple times with its unbearable layers.

In my mind, these “scouting missions” could end until the snows let up in a couple weeks. What kind of creature would try to traverse such wretched climes? Certainly not humans, which meant elves weren’t foolish enough to, either.

Perhaps that’s why we’re doing the missions, I thought blithely as I made my way through the tight halls near the classroom and initiate hovels. Because the elves will know the human defenses aboveground are miniscule this time of season. It is the perfect opportunity to travel undetected through the Isle for anyone who knows the way humans interact with the climate here.

With that thought in mind, I meandered into the central part of the academy, passing the underground river that fed the entire cave system.

I thought about Ravinica again, smiling at how I’d ravaged her. It never got tiring. Quite the opposite, she invigorated me like nothing else. We fucked hard and rolled around like maniacs, quenching each other’s insatiable thirst.

I would never let her go.

The rushing black river to my right was loud enough to drown my thoughts. It annoyed me, so I started to move away from it, deeper into a cavern I knew spit me out in the same direction I was going.

I stopped in a carved archway, eyes narrowing. There was a calmness that shouldn’t exist here. Fungi dotted the seeping walls, and the quietness was eerie. There were usually students all over the central riverbend. Why is no one—

Fast footsteps had me spinning on my heels, toward the river.

A figure leapt over a narrow section of the waterway, black and blurry, jumping too far for a human. It landed on four legs, bounding right for me, snarling with glinting yellow eyes.

A wolf with dark fur. Unrelated to me, I knew, because I knew my brothers and sister better than anyone. Judging by the wolf’s speed, and the deadly snarl on his face, he was not coming for an idle chat.

A second wolf joined him from an entry to the south.

My eyes flashed wide. I began shifting as I spun around to get deeper into the cave. My clothes fell to the ground, and I darted away in my shifted form.

The pads of my paws hardly touched the ground as I sprinted. Low howls and yips carried on every side, through the window-like apertures of the sparse tunnels to my left and right.

At least four wolves tailed me.

An ambush. What the fuck is this?

I had no time to think about it. My primal nature took over, all instinct and survival.

A wolf barreled toward me head-on, from the direction I’d been going. He hesitated as I charged at him, trying to get me to slow down and block my path.

Slowing down meant getting swarmed, so I simply charged into him, lowering my head. I butted the wolf in the side, sending him sprawling, whining, end-over-end, and I kept moving. My hind legs pumped as I debated where to go.

I knew these caves better than almost anyone. A plan started to form in my savage mind.

These were wolves from the Lanfen pack. I recognized them based on their darker fur and the stature of their forms. There were no other rivals of the Torfens who would be brazen enough to try something like this in broad daylight, so to speak.

The Lanfens were a lesser clan, led by patriarch Haldor Lanfen. While they considered themselves “rivals” to the Torfens, they were really just annoyances.

At least they had been up until now. Up until Gothi Sigmund encouraged violence among the student base by crowning the most bloodthirsty initiate in decades as Drengr.

I won’t turn around, I thought vaguely as I careened forward through narrowing tunnels and expansive caverns. Bringing the ambushers to Ravinica or her mates was untenable.

I wouldn’t put any of them in danger, especially Ravinica.

I only knew one group of allies who would be together and could help me: my own pack.

Sliding on my hind legs, rounding a pillar, I changed directions on a dime. Two wolves skittered past me, unable to accommodate the swift shift in momentum. Two others curved their trajectory to continue giving chase.

I galloped through the halls, instinctively knowing where I was going. If the Lanfens hadn’t been so mind-addled by bloodlust, they would have known where I was leading them.

It was no secret where the Torfens holed up.

Heading south, toward the western edge of the mountain, I entered a space of tendril-like tunnels hardly big enough for more than one animal.

They opened into wider caves, with high ceilings and a few cracked spots that let in slivers of pale sunlight.

I glanced over my shoulder, chest heaving, body prickling with excitement at the chase. I let my senses take over, sniffing the air for signs of my enemy.

I was close to the Torfen den, not far from the area beneath Nottdan Quarter on the southwest region of campus.

Padding over a sharp hill, I lowered my body and listened.

At some point, the Lanfen pack had stopped following me. I couldn’t be sure when they’d disengaged. Wagering a guess, it was when I emerged in this crystalline section of caves leading directly to my family den.

My body heaved from exertion. I made my way into the opening cave, proud to have escaped the Lanfens, but also feeling cowardly for having to run. Why the hell did they ambush me near the river in the first place? What has happened to make them so bold?

The fools would pay.

As I shifted into a human, I rounded a corner and called out, “You guys aren’t going to believe who just tried to fucking attack me. We’re going to have a field day, kin.”

A fist flew out of the shadow to my left.

My waning animal instincts kicked in and I dodged low, back bending painfully from the awkward maneuver. Eyes wide as the fist flew by my face, I Shaped a rune to summon wind and blow the attacker back.

Another strong arm wrapped around my bicep, pulling me, exposing my bare chest and shutting my runeshaping down with a wisp of illuminated air.

I roared, trying to spin to locate my attacker.

A kick landed hard at the backs of my legs from the first attacker, forcing me forward onto my knees. The bastard holding my right arm wrapped around me, keeping me immobile, tying my arms behind my back with great effort.

I struggled and writhed against the combined weight of the two hangers-on, utterly shocked at the familiar scent and shadows.

“What—” A gasp ripped through my throat when a third shadow emerged directly in front of me, from behind a narrow stalagmite.

“Well met, brother.”

Before the shock could fully register, before I could say a thing, Edda punched me in the face, snapping my head back.

My mind spun, blackened. I blinked rapidly to gather my thoughts, spitting up blood. “What is . . . this . . .”

Behind me and to my right, Ulf and Olaf kept me pinned. Edda was a strong woman who only spoke when she had something to say. She shot first and asked questioned later.

So she decided to wail on me instead of telling me what the fuck was going on—why my own pack was betraying me.

Confusion melded into pain as she lobbed fists into my belly, my face. It stunned me enough that Ulf and Olaf could let me go and I only wobbled in place on my knees, unable to defend myself because of my sheer shock.

My brothers—one younger, one older—started kicking me and forced me into a fetal position to protect myself. My eldest sister spat on me and joined the fray with her own heavy boots.

“You’ve been lingering too long with the silver-haired pup, Sven!” Edda yelled. “You have failed to lead us and propel us forward. Enough is enough. It’s time for new leadership with the changing of the times.”

“Father will h-hear of this!” I croaked through the waylaying, the pain, the rustling of kicks being levied at my body. Dirt kicked up in the air and I started coughing, retching as agony lanced up my sides from broken ribs.

Edda scoffed, letting out a rare bark of a laugh. “Father? Are you jesting, man? This was his idea!”

The betrayal sank deeper. Soul-deep. She’s lying. Father would never authorize such a cowardly betrayal of his own son!

I had been the golden boy. The pack leader here at Vikingrune. Now Edda was saying I was unworthy of the position, and that pissed me off more than anything. Even more than the fists and boots raining down on me.

“Was hoping we’d not need to get our hands dirty, brother,” Olaf said in a low voice. “Sorry.” He added another kick to my gut for good measure.

I spat up blood and thick saliva. The physical pain was bad, but the emotional pain was unbearable. I felt myself losing it, drifting out of the realm of the living.

It was impossible to imagine. My own flesh and blood had teamed up with the Lanfens to root me out, chase me to my own pack den, where my brothers and sister could finish the job.

“You were so busy burying your cock in the silver-haired whore you didn’t even notice the missive we received from Father two weeks past,” Edda said.

A crumpled piece of paper slid from her hands, onto the ground near my naked body.

“Father wants change, growth. You’ve given us none of it. Your own brothers and sister don’t even know where you are half the time.” Edda snarled and kicked me again, harder. “The buck stops with you, baby brother. You’re no leader of wolves. You’re a follow-pup, just like the Lanfens.”

She scoffed. The battering had stopped, leaving me bruised, my breath rattling in my chest, my eyes nearly blurred shut from the vicious attack.

Vaguely, randomly, memories of better times with my kin popped into my head. Laughing as we jostled each other and pretended to fight, cock-measuring. Once upon a time, before Vikingrune Academy, we’d been thick as thieves.

And now this.

“Y-You . . . cowards.” Red strands of blood spilled out the corners of my mouth. I wondered how many shattered bones I had. Most of me had gone numb.

Edda stared down at my broken body, meaty arms crossed over her large chest. “Father has a plan, Sven. And you are no longer part of it.”

She slammed the sole of her boot against my face, and blessed darkness took hold.