"Some men have good reason to fear their own shadows."
, Svargmitt, a druid of An Skellig
...
A hym is a creature born of the Conjunction of the Spheres, a very rare and dangerous monster. Those afflicted by it will sometimes see a huge humanoid shadow with long, sharp claws, yet no one except the victim can see the hym at all.
It fastens itself to people who have done evil, seizes on the weaknesses of human nature, and through whispers in the victim's ear stirs up fear, regret, guilt, and other negative emotions, urging them toward violence, cruelty, and self-harm.
Those tormented by a hym can never find restful sleep, for they are plagued by frequent, vivid nightmares. At times the victim becomes so frayed that they threaten or beg the unseen fiend, or loudly confess the crimes they have committed, hoping to bring the torment to an end.
But that does no good.
The hym does not leave until its victim has either gone completely mad or taken their own life.
, Beyond the Veil
...
Spikeroog Island, Clan Brokvar's old family home, the book Beyond the Veil snapped shut.
Cerys glared fiercely at her dear sister. After finishing the book, she felt a deep sense of humiliation, as though she had been played for a fool. Angoulême had clearly known the answer long ago, yet had kept her mouth shut and let her spend these past several days running all over the place, gathering information everywhere while charging full speed in completely the wrong direction!
What made it even worse was that the moment she had proudly finished laying out the first draft of her reasoning, Angoulême had immediately pulled out the book and slapped her in the face with the truth.
The dignity of the brains of the three sisters had been trampled.
Did the princess of Clan an Craite not deserve even a shred of pride!?
The wild girl awkwardly rubbed her earlobe. Naturally, even she felt a little guilty. She could feel the sharp chill in the air, and it was not just the bleak wind leaking through the cracks in the doorway, but also the threat in Sparrowhawk's eyes.
But what was she supposed to do? She was helpless too!
Vic's clever little note had spelled it out perfectly clearly. Unless the conditions lined up completely, she was not allowed to bring out the book, otherwise it might mislead their judgment.
So she put on an innocent, foolish grin and slowly edged toward Svani, looking for cover.
The next second, Cerys let out a yell and pounced on Angoulême, and the two of them rolled into a tangle on the floor.
...
On Undvik, in the abandoned town of Dorve, the last thirty-odd warriors of the giant-slaying party were resting and regrouping, while the four men everyone acknowledged as their leading voices had gathered around a campfire to hold council.
They were, respectively, the red-haired Leif, who had been clawed in several places by sirens yet had not lost heart, Folan of Clan Tuirseach, whose face had been slashed by a traitor yet whose eyes remained as sharp as ever, and Aviro, who had nearly been flattened by an ice troll but still refused to yield.
And the reason for the firmness of all three of them was the fourth man, Hjalmar an Craite. This hulking giant of a man, with his red hair and thick beard, had a way of filling others with courage simply by standing beside them. As long as he still lived, the expedition still had hope.
Yet after yesterday's mutiny, the warriors left here no longer had the high spirits they had when they first arrived.
Clans undermining one another was nothing new, but in a moment like this, when all should have stood together to bring down a monster, turning their weapons on each other was something without precedent. So everyone's expressions were grim.
They also had different ideas about what should be done next, but first Hjalmar asked Folan to repeat to the others the warning the Dovahkiin had given on the night before departure.
"...That's how it happened. Everything that followed turned out exactly the way the Dovahkiin said it would. I'm worried sick about Mr. Victor. I'm afraid Wolfgang may already have murdered him while covering the rear!" said Folan Tuirseach.
"Don't be an idiot!" Aviro snapped. "Have you forgotten the tales of the Dragonborn cutting down a hundred men with his blade? No matter what sort of man Wolfgang was, he didn't have a hundred pirates under him. Frankly, I think if we hold out a little longer, Victor will come to our aid!"
Red-haired Leif slapped his knee. "What sort of talk is that? Are you saying we should stop fighting for glory with our own hands and pin our hopes on somebody else?"
Aviro shook his head.
"That's not what I mean. But out of more than two hundred men, only a few dozen of us are left now..."
"You shouldn't think of it that way. I actually think we're more united now than before," Leif shot back. "Everyone knows exactly what this large-scale betrayal was about. Some men are so crazed by the thought of becoming king they've lost their minds! But precisely because of that, those of us who remain are the true warriors of one heart and one mind. I believe that if we seize the right chance, we can defeat the ice giant."
Folan shook his head and sighed. "Please. You're still talking about defeating the ice giant. Back in Urskar, just the ice troll and the sirens were enough to break us."
"But that was because the traitors threw us into chaos. If we can form ranks and stand together, I don't believe we'd lose," Leif insisted.
Stuffing more wood into the fire, Aviro spat to one side. "And can you guarantee the men still on our side won't stab us in the back again? Let's count the traitors we've had. Wolfgang, who stayed behind, has vanished without a trace. The rotten Maki brothers drew steel on us. That damned thief Egnar broke the Hornwall horn... when a single expedition breeds that many traitors, I sincerely suggest we head back to the coast. If need be, we can even abandon the ships. We hold out at Marlin Coast, and within seven days at most, at least the Dragonborn's ship will come. We pull back, prepare properly, and next time we won't get beaten this badly."
Red-haired Leif fell silent, clearly moved by Aviro's argument.
Folan rubbed his nose and turned to the commander who had remained silent the entire time. "Hjalmar, I think Aviro's right. You know me, I'm not speaking out of fear. But if we die here like this, it'll be such a worthless end! These shameful betrayals ought to be laid bare before the world!"
The discussion came to a close. Everyone turned to the eldest son of Clan an Craite and waited for his decision.
There was a long scar on his face, one left from a childhood skating race with Ciri. He had broad shoulders, excelled with the sword, and possessed every quality of an outstanding warrior. And his natural charisma and near-mad confidence had not diminished in the slightest, even now.
His eyes burned with fire. "Don't weep for the dead, drink to them! I've heard all your voices, but I'm going on. The ice giant's lair should be somewhere nearby. I believe that if we can catch it with a surprise attack, we can still succeed. And once the giant falls, the remaining sirens and ice trolls can be beaten in formation."
His decision made the other three stare at one another.
Then Aviro leaned back with a hand over his face. "Fine. I'm with you!"
Kicking over an empty wineskin, red-haired Leif said savagely, "Then I'll stake my life on yours. I swear I'll die before you do."
"We need to find the giant's lair as quickly as possible," Folan said.
The men had made up their minds. They rose from the fire and went to gather their companions, but at that very moment a dark shape swept across the sky with a shrill cry, the sign that a flock of sirens was beginning another attack.
Hjalmar drew a deep breath, and his war cry thundered through Dorve.
"Ragh nar Roog!!!"
The warriors roared as one, "For Skellige!"
...
At the same time, in the cliffside cavern of Clan Tordarroch Forge, the remains hanging from iron hooks had been drying out for days, and were not easily taken down. Even though they were to be cremated soon, the boy still wanted to keep them as intact as possible. It was the last respect owed to people, so his movements were careful and focused.
After lowering yet another body, Victor suddenly froze.
Thud... thud... thud... thud...
Clear footsteps could be heard, growing louder and louder, coming from farther and farther away until they were almost upon him.
Bang!
The door burst off its hinges.
Their eyes met, wide against wide, and the air seemed to crackle.
The giant's fury was impossible to contain. It had never imagined someone would dare steal its food. The boy's blood turned to ice. Never in his wildest thoughts had he expected to meet the monster here. Half an hour ago he had still been planning how to ambush it, yet now they had run headlong into each other without warning.
The giant bared its teeth, glaring murderously as it came closer one earth-shaking step at a time.
The boy's hand plunged into his herbal satchel, pulling out one vial after another and pouring them down his throat.
He did not turn and run. He did not shout. He simply locked eyes with the monster, trying to cow it by sheer force of nerve. Any sudden movement would start the fight at once, and every second he delayed might mean one more potion swallowed.
The plan had changed on the spot. He had originally meant to gather everyone's strength against it, but now that they had met here by chance,
Whoosh!
A black blur flew straight at Victor's head. He ducked low, and shattered stone sprayed from the rock wall behind him as the giant hurled its club.
This ancient, powerful creature, the ice giant, might well have been the last of its race. It looked in many ways like an enormous man, yet its skin was blue as frost and it stood taller than a tree.
It clearly possessed intelligence. The fact that it could command sirens and ice trolls proved as much. But the alchemist abandoned any thought of speaking with it. Surely not all the people hanging from those hooks had been poor negotiators, and the end they met was warning enough.
The giant's armor was made from rope, bones, and the wreckage of ships. Seeing that the thrown club had missed, it drew an even more terrifying weapon from behind its back, a chained anchor.
Victor drew Blazing Strike and struck the guard with his thumb. Flames roared across the blade at once, and the giant's eyes became a touch more wary. Clearly, somewhere in its memory, enemies who wielded flaming swords were never weak.
But that only bought him a few seconds.
By the time Victor had downed the full set, Blizzard, Thunderbolt, Tawny Owl, plus the Dragon Shout Potion, the chained anchor came crashing down in a sweeping blow that filled the floor with dust.
The battle began.
In the mouths of bards, many epics will tell you how a hero meets a giant's blow with sword or shield, parries it aside, and then trades fierce attacks with the monster in an even contest.
But in a setting less romantic than that, such as the present moment, the bard Victor would frankly tell you that the only practical way to fight a giant is to dodge, the time-honored survival art of hitting the ground and rolling for your life. That's the only part that's real. Everything else is nonsense.
The monster swung the chained anchor at the boy like a man playing whack-a-mole, one blow after another, roaring as it reduced the forge to even greater ruin.
And in the midst of that constant rolling, Victor seized an opening, rushed in close, and let out a Dragon Shout.
"Fus, Ro, Dah!"
The giant froze for a brief instant.
Then came a School of the Wolf secret art, Exploding Sword, a roaring Grapeshot blast straight to the face!
Clang!
The chained anchor dropped to the ground.
Then the dust cleared, and Victor's eyes widened.
The monster was almost completely unhurt. Tiny shards of iron glittered against its ugly face.
...So that pale blue on its skin was not merely color, it was a magical frost armor condensed over its body!?
Realizing he'd lost focus for a split second, he immediately rolled again and tucked himself behind a rocky bit of cover. The spot where he had just been standing, with a cabinet behind it, was smashed into splinters by the iron anchor.
With his back against the stone wall, Victor told himself that although things were troublesome, they were not hopeless yet. Next he would try melting the ice armor with Dancing Star, or choking it with the stench of Devil's Puffball. No matter how big it was, it still had to breathe.
Don't think being enormous means you can do whatever you want!
Over the next few minutes, the boy unleashed everything he could on the giant in a furious barrage, burning through a massive portion of his stored firepower.
Then he ducked back behind the rock wall once more, letting the giant rage and smash wildly outside.
Bloody hell!
Ice armor really did let it do whatever it pleased!
The magical frost shell was highly resistant to Dancing Star's flames, while Devil's Puffball, which could overwhelm a normal human body, was nothing more than pepper to the giant. It sneezed twice and that was that. As for his trump card, the anti-magic dagger, it could disrupt the hardness of the ice armor and even cut the skin beneath, but it could do no more than that.
After a moment's thought, Victor shook his head. He needed explosions that were stronger, harsher, more effective... or perhaps a Grapeshot cluster anti-magic bomb.
At times like this, any sensible man would retreat, go back, prepare properly, and return later. A man worth a king's ransom had no business taking reckless risks.
Wait, what is Vigi doing over there!?
From the side, Victor noticed that somehow, at some point, the scoundrel had quietly climbed up onto a nearby wooden platform, Dawn Sword clutched in his hands.
Damn it, he couldn't be planning to...
No!
While the captain tried to stop him in silence, he could only watch as his companion hurled himself off the platform. Combining the force of gravity with Dawn Sword's sharpened edge, he drove the steel blade hard into the ice giant's shoulder.
Then the monster backhanded him with a single punch, sending him flying. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he crashed into a heap of rubble, his fate unknown.
Victor had no idea whether he ought to be angry or impressed. Yes, the giant had been wounded, but this kind of reckless act was nothing short of dragging him down. Vigi was lying there now, meaning Victor could no longer simply cut and run with a clean conscience...
Wait.
Suddenly the boy noticed something strange about the giant's reaction. It was swinging around wildly as if it could not see, one hand smashing about at random while the other kept frantically wiping at its face.
In that instant, inspiration struck.
Blood, the blood freezing over had blocked the giant's vision!?
Having understood it all at once, Victor stepped out from behind the rock.
Winter sunlight streamed through the window and fell over him. The boy's eyes were clear, and his voice rang grand and bright.
"Scoundrel Vigi, well done!
At this moment, your light shines brighter than the sun itself.
You have not only lit the road to victory, you have lit the road I must now walk.
With the resolve you showed, embracing certain death and refusing to yield even in a desperate corner, with the risk you took to bring down the giant, you have shown me what it truly means to possess the resolve to die.
The so-called resolve to die is not a heart that plans on sacrifice.
It is the will to carve a road forward through the darkness of the mine!"
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