Skull-King and Realms (Book 6)

Chapter 4 Saku Visits Shadow Realm

The crystal ice wolf stood there looking at Saku and snorted causing him to turn into a frozen ice-like stone. When he wakes up, he awakes in the Shadow realm " What in the Helheim am I doing here?" Uri walks up next to him making the mistake of putting his hand on his shoulder. his fingers froze and Saku grabs his wrist flipping him over and to the ground "Ow, shit Saku ice-flame I was just trying to welcome you to the shadow realm, although I don't know what you're doing here, you cannot survive in this realm! You have to be in your homeland, unless," scratching his head " Unless you have no homeland to go to, which would explain a lot. However you need cold, ice to survive and we do not have that anywhere here that will provide that type of place, I'm sorry Saku."

He looks at Uri with frustration and confusion "So what the Helheim does that mean? I'm in the wrong realm!" Uri nods "Unfortunately yes." The look on Saku's face clarified that his berserker temper was flaring up yet again. Akela walked in saw Saku and almost instantly fell on her face " Shit, sorry Uri I didn't realize there was someone in here with you. Him of all people, hi Saku!" Akela said nervously, he waved at her "Hey Akela, when did you get back here?" She looks down avoiding eye contact " Last week!" Uri looks at Saku "Anyway, what about the ice trolls? Can you not go there?" Saku began to let his anger show "You think that if I was supposed to go to the land with the trolls' I would be here? I do not want to be here I want to be alive and to stop passing the hel out! I want to be able to control whatever the hell I'm dealing with and I want to know why I keep having an ice-cold blue flame blast off my damn arm burning everything but mead! So if you cannot answer any of that shut the fuck up and tell me how to get out of this damn realm!" Uri threw his hands up "You know what your right, deal with this shit yourself!" He walks off past Akela, she walks over to Saku putting her hand on his left shoulder " Saku try to breathe, I've seen what that flame can do. I'm sorry the shamen or whatever sent you here, let me try to get you to the frozen lands maybe they will have an answer for you. Close those ice whites breathe slowly and repeat after me!" He closes his eyes with a frustrated sigh " Fine!" Akela recited an old folklore chant that soothed Saku's heart rate down moments later he was in front of a massive ice door. Standing there at the door he began to wonder if this is going to be his last time of being in the realms or if he was going to be a wanderer.

When the doors opened all he heard was someone chanting in his native language and war drums, drums being pounded in sync with an occasional forced native hyea. The drums got louder and faster causing the ice in this realm he was in to move like a time travel tunnel in space. The chant grew louder more clearer when he saw the two people thought to have never been by his side even through the destruction he caused with the ice flame. He saw Creed and Arnora sitting and talking, words began coming through " I never would have thought that all of this turmoil Saku's been through, all the fights we've had and been in, that the flame would kill him!" Creed said. Arnora with tears in her eyes " I didn't realize that I had a brodir, parents hardly spoke of him, but when they did they sounded proud. I guess now I will never get to fully know my brodir... Unless he fights through the realms and gets back here. He will come back right Creed? He has to, he just has to nine years in ice coma is too damn long." She can barely get the words out when she says " I miss my brodir Creed, I need him here!" As she wails in heartache and pain at the thought and image of her brother lying in the middle of the stone circled in her mead. Saku looks around "I've only been away for an hour!" Uri steps up beside him "You see the realm's timeline is much different, as you think you have been gone for an hour here, there its been nine years. I've watched them not be themselves because you're not there. You and Creed have been there since the beginning, the two newly found originals back then. Now you two have a multitude behind you ancestral and hybrid humans."

The chant grew more intense as the drums sounded like they were about to break, but drowned out. He saw Arnora look up and was about to curse her gods until Saku tried something, Uri said" Go ahead and try!" Saku took a deep breath and yelled" Systir I'm alive, I'm here" His yell must've been heard because she looked around and wailed again "Brodir, come back." then she screamed which shook the very being he had "Please!" He looked at Uri " Tell me how in Helheim do I get back? How Uri?" He told him " Saku, you must have full control over this that is trying to kill you, the Ice flame and that takes willpower, the willpower that you do not have yet." He looks at Arnora then Creed and back at Arnora when he sees her tears turn to pure anger, he tries to plead with her " Systir, no please, don't let that side of your warrior win!" he yells " Systir I will come back, I swear to it!" After he said that, the image blurred away, and his arm began to burn again, at the same intensity it was when he passed out he looked where the image was and said " No! I will control this, I have to my family does need me and I need them!" his arm stopped he heard the drums louder this time like he was right on top of them, he saw Shaman chanting and twenty-five war drums being pounded away all in perfect unison until one troll looked up, grinned and purposely slammed both hands down causing a wave reaction of all drums stopping. The shaman knew right then that it was working "Louder" he clicked, and the drums kicked off again soft at first then louder and louder.