Skull-King and Realms (Book 6)

Chapter 3 Arnora's Mead

The hut burns at the highest temperature Saku has ever felt, however, the mead barrels sit in the corner untouched " what the?" he says as he hears a screech and a loud clap with a whoosh of air. The blue flames flash and flicker, dancing around him. Another clap, this one was louder and stronger as it pushed the flames out, Saku fell to the ground with his eyes turning white as Soria, his banshee sister, rushes in, picks him up, and carries him out away from everyone and everything hoping they cannot see them past the fog that's around them. Soria carries her brother out of the hut past the guards, past the battlefield that Ulfkel was defeated on, past the wooded treeline they saw the one pack of wolves at the beginning, and into another wooded area covered by trees and moss from running water. She sets him down on the ground "This is for the better brother I'm sorry!" As she turns and fades into the distance. The blade on his side flashes and then dims while the pendant that the ice goblins gave him dings, five to ten goblins appear along with the Shamen ( healer) of the ice clan. They chit and clack their tongues as they talk amongst each other, Shamen growls and the others stop making noise " oh no, no, no! This is surely not good, he has faded out into another realm, a different realm, one that I may not be able to bring him back from." One of the other goblins asks the Shamen " is that realm killing him?" Shamen nods " unbearably to say unfortunately yes! If he does not come out of this soon he will fade from this realm and cease to exist! So we must do everything to gain his life force back. Quickly gather some stones, grey and black in color, some sticks and twigs for a small fire, and go get his systir's mead. Go now!" One by one the other ice goblins pop as they disappeared as Shamen stayed behind with Saku, "please hurry, brothers he doesn't have long!" He mumbled. The ones that disappeared popped in at the mauling bar [click, click, clack, grunt] one of the ice goblins tried to talk with Arnora when it remembered that she was trained years ago in that language, Arnora turns with worry on her face and repeated what the goblin said: " bródir in trouble, on brink of fade for good, need my mead!" She looked confused for a minute " oh! The mead that he drank and withstood the ice blue flame! Damn, I have to make more, won't take but a few minutes!" Another pops in " systir, Saku doesn't have long maybe twenty minutes, thirty tops, hurry our king is dying!" She tells everyone to get out for a while, bar is closed as she runs to the back. Sounds of things falling and barrels crunching echo throughout the bar "a little bit of this, little bit of that. Shit! No damn time but this needs a little bit to ferment into the drink he needs. Damn it!" She pounds her fist on a table, with tears in her eyes, and it shatters " mother, fadír please help me save my brother. Please!" The power that came out of her fist was new to her, she looks at her fist as she spins it " that's weird!" She hears a low hum off in the back right corner of the storage room, she walks towards the hum and found a clear crystal illuminated with a low blue light. As she picks it up " I wonder, this might work, I hope anyways." She takes it to the broken table and sets it on a small round metal table that was leaning over a little bit. She picked up the keg she had started the mead in and the crystal illuminated brighter, grabbing it off the table and puts it atop the keg it glowed for a second. She knew right then that the crystal was put there by someone who handles magic crystals, but knew her and the family, and is wanting to help get Saku back on his feet. The firmation didn't take long with the crystal "ugh! Where are the damn short ice shits when you need them?" One of them pops its head out of a basket in the corner and made her jump, " you little ice turd!" She hollers " Here! Take this to Saku or is it too heavy?" Lifting the keg up and handing it to him "wha!" It shouts as it falls out of the basket, struggling to stand, Arnora looks at him " come on little guy you can do it, you can do it just grab that strength for Saku. He needs you!" The ice goblin looks at her, his face gets a sincere look, and stumbled backward, stepped forward, and planted his feet with a quiet sound of (clink) he nods and waves for the keg. She walks over with the keg handing it to him and he disappeared with a pop. Moments later it pops back by Saku (who is fading quickly) and sets the keg down beside Shaman clicking its tongue " doctor it is here, the mead, it's right here next to you. The Shamen takes his three-fingered hand and shoves it into the dirt two feet away from Saku and walks around him, creating a circle. He chants the whole time, saying " away from one, back to another!" As he connects the circle a gust of wind rushes through the fields and he stopped next to the keg of mead, takes a knife out of his belt, and quickly jabs the bottom poking a hole. The mead flows into the dugout circle, he draws runes on the stones around Saku, runes of protection, strength, power, and family, the mead gets all the way around to the keg and stops. The runes begin to light up as the Shamen continues to chant, but more frantically, more sincere, and stronger almost yelling in frost troll. Although he fears it is too late as he stops chanting, and looked at Saku " no, no, no, no, Ice King come back!" Saku lays in the middle of the circle barely breathing, as his ice-cold heart begins to slow almost to nothing, Shamen grabs Sakus' enchanted blade and looks it over, a small blue flicker of the ice crystal, he picks it out and puts it into the mead " maybe, just maybe!" The mead sizzles and separates, he looks up and sees the small ice trail leading away from him, a loud bang echoes as the ground freezes and shatters into a thousand tiny pieces of ice forming a white clear wolf.