Page 57 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

Absolon dragged it from Ragnar’s body, and the pain arched his back. Iron nails pushed through his veins and he strained against the agony. He raised up off the bed, his neck bulged, his teeth clenched, and toes curled. He grabbed Absolon’s hand. He had to stop it, but he could do nothing more than hold on to Absolon’s stillness. He was irrevocably within Absolon’s power.

White obliterated his mind and he lost all consciousness of what happened next. His soul was torn out and threshed. But then his soul was back as if it had never been taken and he was alive. But something was different.

Very different.

Something had been added. His soul was now something greater than it had been. And when he opened his eyes, Absolon’s hand was no longer pressing down on him, but the burn remained like a bright day’s afterglow.

He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but as he met Absolon’s sad eyes he stopped.

“It’s not over yet.”

A great chasm opened in the bottom of Ragnar’s stomach, creating a vortex that dragged into it everything that he was. Down and down and on and on until he had been turned inside out. He may have screamed. He may have howled. He could have died and not known. He curled in on himself, pulled his knees up to his chest and waited for birth and death to end.

Then, without him doing anything, because there was nothing he could do, it passed, and he could think again. He could open his eyes again.

He was alive.

“How do you feel?”

His mouth was dry and his throat raspy. He struggled to speak. “Like I’ve been hanged, drawn, and quartered. Is there more?”

Please, let there be no more.

“That’s the ritual over. You’ll hurt for a while, but…” Absolon sighed. “But the next part will make that easier.” He stood and made a torch from the hearth. “We should get this over with. I don’t know how long you’ll have otherwise.”

He felt fine. He felt powerful, vital, like he’d plunged through an ice hole and come out refreshed. His hands tingled, jostling the growing hunger in his belly. He’d eaten only a few hours earlier and should have been sated, but that chasm within him had not fully closed and demanded to be filled.

Something flickered at the edge of his attention and it made him stumble. Ragnar tried to focus on it, but Absolon clicked his fingers.

“Come.”

He followed Absolon outside. He wanted to walk into the middle of the field and dance with the light of the moon pouring out of him, but heavy clouds had rolled in covering the sky.

Later.

Absolon led him around the side of the house. The nearer they got to the storeroom, the more he heard the sound of muffled shouting. Absolon stopped at the door. The key was already in the lock. Waiting. He put his hand on the wood and turned to Ragnar.

“This is it. Take his soul and the ritual is complete. You’ll be as I am. If you don’t, you will die, but that may be preferable.”

“How do I do it?”

“Trust the symbol that is even now coming to life inside your mind. Think it, draw it, sing it if you want, but it must be complete. Touch his bare skin and his soul will be yours. Draw it in as slow or as fast as you wish, like taking a breath.”

The hunger had grown. And when he turned his attention inward, a jumble of lines and shapes flickered in the gloom. His breath shortened in expectation; his heart throbbed with need. All he had to do now was take one soul and the rest would fall before him.

“I’m ready.”

His face grim, Absolon hesitated before unlocking the door and opening it inwards. The light landed on—

“Åke?”

Ragnar stared at bruised and bloodied Åke lying bound and gagged on the ground. He bellowed through the rag stoppering his mouth and writhed trying to break his bonds.

Ragnar turned to Absolon, his breathing short and fast.

Absolon could not look at him and instead stared into the distance like a statue. “You’re not the only one who can be cruel, Ragnar. Now take his soul or die.”

Åke’s screams increased and pierced Ragnar’s chest like poisoned darts. Even though the sound was muffled, he could clearly hear his name pleading in Åke’s mouth. He could blame Lysander for birthing such heartlessness in Absolon, but he knew where true responsibility lay.

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