Frozen origins, p.1
Frozen Origins, page 1
part #11 of Path of the Ranger Series
Frozen Origins
(Path of the Ranger, Book 11)
Pedro Urvi
Other Series by Pedro Urvi
THE ILENIAN ENIGMA
THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN GODS
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Dedication
To my good friend Guiller.
Thank you for all your support since day one.
Contents
Frozen Origins
Pedro Urvi
Other Series by Pedro Urvi
Dedication
Contents
MAP
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
The end Book 11
The adventure continues:
Prologue
1
Prologue
Norriel
Acknowledgements
Author
Note from the author:
MAP
Chapter 1
The tavern was crowded that evening. The bartender was shouting at one of the customers who was leaning on the counter, arguing about the price of the drink and waving his arms, enraged. The customer was thin and tall, whereas the bartender was a huge man with an unfriendly face. The argument was tilting toward the largest of the two, who had brought out a cudgel he was threatening the unhappy customer with.
The Tavern of the Honest Market did not exactly honor its name. It was a meeting point for thieves, pirates, corrupt traders, gamblers, and all kinds of disreputable characters from the slums of Copenghen. This was the largest city on the west coast of Norghana and one of the most important to occupants and traders in the whole realm.
The shouts, fights, and settling of accounts were common here. The owner was a sinister trader and smuggler who never showed his face in the tavern. He had half a dozen hired, armed thugs of ill reputation who kept watch inside the premises. They maintained order and silenced any altercation. And they specialized in doing it the hard way.
The door of the leisure establishment opened and two figures wrapped in hooded cloaks walked in, leaving the door open behind them. The customers stopped what they were doing for a moment to check out the two arrivals. The card and dice games froze instantly, as did the toasts with beer jugs amid guffaws, the arguments at the tables and the counter, the tasting of the painfully dry chicken and steaks tough as shoe soles—everything was suspended while they watched the two strangers who had just walked in.
“Shut that door!” one of the thugs said, annoyed.
The activity was renewed at once in the tavern, the spell broken by the man’s shout.
“It’s better to keep it open,” one of the two figures said in a female voice.
“I said to shut the door. What happens in here stays in here,” the man replied, reaching for a cudgel with spikes that was hanging from his waist. He was huge, with blond hair and beard which were very unkempt and dirty. His clothes stank of old sweat and could be smelled from several paces away.
“In a few moments there’s going to be a small stampede,” the second hooded figure said. It was a male voice, his tone one of warning.
“What’s going to happen is that I’m going to crack your skull open!” the robust thug said threateningly, signaling to another of his buddies to step closer.
The female figure pushed her hood back, revealing her face.
“I wouldn’t advise you to try,” Ingrid warned the thug.
“Well, if it isn’t a Nordic cutie!” the thug said with a guffaw that sounded sordid and lewd at the same time.
“She is cute!” said the other thug, who was as big and ugly as his partner. This one had chestnut hair and beard, and he also stank. Cleanliness was obviously foreign to the thugs. The same could be said for the premises, from what could be seen and smelled.
“Keep your distance,” Ingrid warned, reaching out to stop the thug’s advance.
“What’s the matter with this butterfly, is she lost?” the blond thug asked the other.
“It looks that way. We’d better give her some love so she doesn’t feel so out of place,” the brown-haired one replied.
“That would be a very bad idea,” the other figure said in a warning tone.
“And who’s that? Your boyfriend?”
The figure pushed back his hood and revealed his face.
“In fact, that’s exactly what I am: her boyfriend,” Viggo said with a triumphant smile.
Ingrid rolled her eyes but did not correct him.
“I don’t believe it. You’re too little a thing to be this snow-covered-mountains beauty’s boyfriend,” the blond thug said.
Viggo nodded. “You’re not wrong. Life is full of meaningless inconsistencies, like you being a thug with the soul of a poet.”
“I’m no bloody poet!” the thug said angrily, and he showed Viggo the cudgel, brandishing it threateningly.
“And surely you don’t know what inconsistency means. No problem, me neither. I simply picked it up from my friend Egil, a wise know-it-all I spend too much time with.”
“I do know what it means!” the thug replied, annoyed, and he was lost in thought for a moment, his gaze lost.
“You sure you know? You don’t look too sure …”
“It means … that …”
“That it’s a coincidence?” said the brown-haired thug.
“Almost, but not …” Viggo said, shaking his head and looking extremely disappointed.
“Doesn’t matter what it means!” the blond one cried angrily, unable to come up with the meaning of the word.
Ingrid heaved a deep sigh and shook her head.
“Are you done messing around?” she asked Viggo with a reproachful look.
Viggo smiled at Ingrid, all charm.
“Yes, my precious.”
Ingrid blushed, half in rage, half from Viggo’s compliment.
“How could I have offended the Ice Gods to be punished in such an insufferable manner?” she muttered under her breath.
“I don’t like you. You look like troublemakers,” the blond one said, pointing his cudgel at them.
“We do? But we’re so sweet,” Viggo assured him, his expression suggesting he had never so much as broken a plate in his life.
“You’re in the wrong establishment. Get out,” the other thug told them.
“Not at all. This is precisely the place we should be,” Viggo said.
“We won’t repeat it! Get out!” the thug insisted.
Ingrid stared at the thug threatening them with his cudgel.
“We’re here on official business. I’m sure you don’t want to interfere with a mission ordered by King Thoran.”
The two thugs looked at one another. He had caught their attention.
“You’re not part of the City Guard,” the brown-haired thug said, taking in their clothes.
“We’re Rangers on an official mission,” Ingrid said with authority.
“Rangers can’t come into this tavern,” the blond thug said.
“And why not?” Ingrid asked.
“Because we don’t like filthy Rangers,” the other one said, reaching for his club as well, this one fixed with a big, solid, wooden head.
Viggo laughed out loud. He pinched his nose with two fingers and then pointed at the two thugs.
“Filthy?” Ingrid said, offended, ignoring Viggo’s comic gesture.
“Yes. Filthy. You spend all day in the mountains and woods and then come into town to poke your nose into matters that don’t concern you.”
“If we poke our noses in, it might be because they’re illegal matters,” Ingrid replied defiantly.
“There’s nothing illegal here, and you two can’t come in,” the thug replied.
“You can’t refuse us entry. We’re Rangers and we can go anywhere we need in the realm,” Ingrid said.
“Not here,”
“Are you going to make me take you down?” Ingrid said, narrowing her eyes.
“Try it, blondie, and I’ll cru sh that pretty little head of yours.”
“Oops… you shouldn’t have called her blondie…” Viggo said, shaking his head. “She’s going to get angry…”
“Blonde and cute,” the thug said sordidly.
Ingrid took a step forward and delivered a right punch straight to his nose. There was a crack and the thug stepped back.
“My nose! She broke my nose!” he cried, feeling it. “I’m going to kill you!”
“Come on, don’t be such a drama queen, you haven’t lost that much—you weren’t exactly handsome to begin with…” Viggo said nonchalantly.
The thug tried to hit Ingrid on the head with his cudgel. His partner followed suit and attacked Viggo. Ingrid gauged the giant’s attack which, although brutal in power, was clumsy in execution. She stepped aside. The cudgel came down toward the floor and missed completely. Before he could raise it again to try another blow, Ingrid kicked him hard in the crotch. The thug bent over in agony and fell to his knees on the floor, looking sick.
Viggo deflected the other thug’s club with a defensive move using the two knives he’d pulled out with incredible speed. When the thug tried to hit him again, Viggo lunged at him fast and hit the man’s Adam’s apple with his right fist. The thug began to choke, unable to breathe. He put his hands to his throat. Viggo continued the attack and hit him in the temple with the butt of his knife in a circular move. The thug was totally stunned—he lost his balance and fell to his knees, still struggling for air.
Ingrid delivered a tremendous knee blow to the head of thug on his knees before her, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
“I told you she was going to be angry…” Viggo told him.
“Will you please deal with that one?” Ingrid said, waving at the thug kneeling beside Viggo.
“This one? But he’s harmless…”
“We’re not here to play.”
“Fine… you never let me enjoy myself,” Viggo hit the man on the temple; he fell to one side and lay there unconscious.
The rest of the tavern’s thugs and customers had witnessed the fight, and suddenly there was a flurry of movement. Knives, clubs, short axes, and hooks began to appear in their owners’ hands.
“This is starting to look like fun,” Viggo told Ingrid with one of his smiles which meant he was ready to have a good time.
“Everyone stand still!” Ingrid shouted with authority.
Everybody stared at her for an instant. From under her shirt, Ingrid took out her Ranger medallion and held it up for everyone to see.
“We’re Rangers! We’re here on a mission for the king!” she said.
“There’s nothing here for you,” the bartender said.
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Viggo replied.
The thugs glanced at the bartender, waiting for an order to intervene. Several ugly-looking customers who were already wielding weapons were eying them with hatred. They didn’t seem fond of Rangers.
“We’re the Royal Eagles! We’re here on a mission searching for Dark Rangers!” Ingrid said.
“And what’s it to me? You might be Thoran himself for all I care!” one of the armed customers said, laughing.
“We’re going to render that pretty face of yours unrecognizable!” another cried.
“Bloody Rangers!”
Viggo got closer to Ingrid.
“Sweetheart, they don’t seem to have much love for us in this tavern,” he said under his breath.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed. And these here are the best of the slums of this and several other cities.”
They took a step forward. Half the customers were standing with weapons in their hands. The other half were watching silently with surly looks.
“Those who wish to leave and are not Dark Rangers may do so,” Ingrid said, indicating the open door behind her.
“Those who want a fight, here we are,” Viggo said, opening his arms and showing his knives in invitation.
There was a moment of silence, of doubt. Then suddenly a third of the people in the tavern stampeded out the door. Another third headed to the back of the tavern, and the last third lunged at Ingrid and Viggo.
“This is going to be so much fun!” Viggo said as he deflected the club of one of the thugs and delivered a hard kick to his knee, which broke with a horrible sound.
“Don’t kill them, we have to question them,” Ingrid told him as, with a knife in one hand and her short axe in the other, she fended off two especially cruel-looking attackers.
Those who were escaping through the open door went out expecting to find more Rangers, but they were wrong. The front of the tavern and the street that led to it were deserted. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The first six started to run and heard several “clicks” under their feet. A moment later several ice traps burst, freezing the runners’ lower limbs; they fell to the ground amid curses and cries of rage.
Those who came out after them avoided the now-frozen runners and tried to escape up the street, since the docks were at the other end and they would end up in the water. As they were running, they heard more “clicks,” and this time large nets shot up from the ground—like fishing nets, but smeared with a sweet, sticky substance. They were caught in the nets and fell to the ground. The more they tried to escape the nets, the more tangled they became and the more smeared they were with the sticky substance.
The last group left the tavern; seeing everybody lying in the street, they turned to run down the street toward the docks, sprinting as though hungry wolves were after them. When they were about to reach the docks, the one running in the lead tripped on a black-painted rope tied from one side of the street to the other. He fell on his face while the others tried to jump over it. They ran a little farther and then encountered another rope which hit them at eye level, making several of them fall backwards. The few who were still on their feet tried to flee while the others were trying to get back up, but they met two Rangers armed with bows waiting for them at the end of the street, the sea at their backs.
“Stop right there if you don’t want to have an arrow through you!” Gerd warned them.
In spite of the warning, several tried to dodge them at a run. Two arrows reached the first two; they were Earth Arrows, and they burst, blinding and stunning those who were trying to escape.
“Don’t you even try …” Nilsa said, aiming beside Gerd.
Four more did not heed the advice and tried to escape—two back to the tavern and two toward the water. Gerd dealt with the two who were trying to reach the water. Nilsa dealt with the other thugs with two accurate shots.
Inside the tavern, Viggo was bringing down thugs and bandits skillfully. He moved with impressive speed, precision, and balance, dodging and counterattacking with impressive skill. His opponents fell to the ground unconscious or in terrible pain quicker than the blink of an eye.
He was massively enjoying the fight.
Ingrid did not have Viggo’s speed or skill in hand-to-hand combat, but she defended herself like a lioness. Her blows were hard and precise. Every time she hit, a rival fell like a log to the ground. She had to be careful not to injure them seriously, which made it harder to defeat them, but none of the hoodlums had the necessary skill to beat her—they were nothing but sewer rats with sharp teeth and claws. Even though a knife almost cut into her thigh forcing her to focus. Ingrid delivered a kick to her attacker’s chest, sending him backwards to the ground where he tripped on another comrade who was already down. Before he could get back up, Viggo left him senseless with a knee to the face.
“I’m loving this date. We’ve got to do this more often,” Viggo said to Ingrid as she knocked down a gaunt man with two knives using a circular blow to the head with the flat of her axe.
She looked back at him.
“Will you please take this seriously?”
“I am taking it very seriously. I’m only saying I love it and that we should do it more often.”
“This isn’t a date,” Ingrid told him as she blocked a knife with hers and delivered another kick to the attacker’s supporting leg, making him lose balance. She finished him with a crossed left punch with her knife hand.
“Of course it’s a date! A perfect one,” Viggo said, sliding to one side and hitting the back of the neck of another bandit who fell, unconscious before he hit the floor.
