The Verdant Prince

Chapter 32: Burst Bottles

Two rights, one left. Orgnar was right in his directions to the throne room. I wasn't sure how, but nevertheless I followed. The throne room was very unlike its outside facade. The throne room's ceiling was so high that the darkness swallowed it up before I was able to find the top. Jagged spikes of ice dipped in and out of the darkness of the ceiling and something told me that with a hard enough push to a support column would cause the ice spikes to fall as deadly knives.

In a very disquieting way, the room was beautiful. We were bunched up right at the entrance of the room. Six hefty stone and ice columns lined up on each side, a cold blue flame flickering on the front of each one, lighting our path to the broken, barbed throne. The blue flames, which were still a mystery to me, cast glimmering images and shadows across the corridor, dancing on the sharp ceiling spikes. The floor, just as everything else, was icy, making us walk slower to find our grip.

Orgnar straightened himself out and steppes forward, making it past the first set of stone columns. We copied his movements, drawing our shoulders back to stand straighter and appear proud and confident. I was sure despite what we had been taught for nearly five years of having no fear and never appearing in a distressed state, had been completely forgotten. Though we may look menacing on the outside, we were no more than scared warriors wishing to return home to warm sheets and cold mead. Or at least those of us that had a home to go to.

As we passed the second to last set if columns, Orgnar halted completely. As if it were practiced, which it very well might have been, Thor and Loki flanked his sides, creating a triangle. Orgnar suddenly bashed the butt of his axe into the ice once. The ice beneath it cracked slightly while the echo of the impact rippled off of the icy surfaces in the corridor. If it hadn't been for years of training and the stony-faced complexion, I was sure that we would have flinched.

Orgnar bashed the butt of his axe into the ice again, its crack widening and spreading further to the glassy throne. Orgnar repeated the action once more before resting his axe against his shoulder in a stern stance. Three bashes- the universal signal for summoning. Laufey was being summoned in his own palace in his own realm, if that didn't anger him than I didn't really want to know what did.

"Laufey, King of Jotunheim and the frost giants that dwell here. Come forth and accept your fate!" Orgnar growled, his voice being carried and echoed across the ice. His stature and face remained expressionless and even cold, but his eyes were raging with a fire of a million Muspelheim rivers. His knuckles were white which complimented his deathly grip on his axe. Beside him Thor stood tall, his hammer raised and his brows furrowed. To the duo's leftmost flank stood Loki whose twin daggers were stiff at his side. I knew better than to think he was unready, however. At the drop of a pin he could cut a foe into pieces.

"You're brave to assume that you know my fate," a deep growl echoed through the throne room, sending unwelcomed shivers down my spine. I knew most of Jotunheim held frost giants, but none to this degree. None that made you shiver in cold when they spoke. Out from the darkness behind the glassy throne came a medium sized Jotun, his eyes as red as rubies. Despite his smaller build as a frost giant, he made up for it in bulk. He was lean but I had no doubt in my mind that he could snap an enemy's arm in half if he so pleased.

His armor was not crude and badly made like the previous Jotuns had bad wearing. Instead, he wore golden cuffs in each upper arm. A loin cloth hung heavy and low. A matching gold and chain mail belt held the loin cloth up, guarding his flesh up to his upper torso. A half breast plate sat on his shoulders, the metal coming to a stop just below his sternum. Draped across his shoulders and mid way down his back was a thick grey fur cloak. My guess was that the fur belonged to a sabre cat or mountain wolf because of its color and rarity. Such a color and fur cloak was common for war or warlike functions. I suppose you could say that King Laufey came dressed for battle. We shouldn't expect anything less of a king.