Tales of the Vangen: The Siege of Middengard (Book 2)

Chapter 50: Resurrection

"Feth."

Brand awoke to a world of pain and darkness. His lower abdomen burned, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth like a wedge of cotton. He peeled his lips open, let out a moan that radiated with agony, his whole body one giant sore. He remembered with painful clarity his sudden and catastrophe fall. The look in his uncle's eyes as he pushed him off the balcony, so cold, so unfeeling. Like a smith tossing a broken tool aside. He recalled the lurch in his guts as his body instinctually swung for purchase, found nothing, and then he dropped. The air rushed in his ears, super heated wind nipping at his eyes, scorching his hair, roaring like a monster in his ears.

Pain. There was so much pain as he fell. At first he'd felt nothing, then It radiated from his guts till he screamed, lungs burning. All the while the bottom of the mountain drew closer, magma churning in great, heaving vats. He could see cave systems jutting from the walls, ramps and bridges snacking criss cover over each other. He dove past them in a rush, his vision growing dim from blood loss, closer and closer until...

Brand groaned as his mind filled in the blanks. He was dead, surely, the vast darkness surrounding him in his own personal afterlife. Truth be told he'd never believed in the Pits before. Thought it a mere superstition like the rest of the noble houses, but now he was starting to believe they were wrong. He deserved it, regardless. He'd been a worthless fool in all his short existence. Working with one conniving bastard after the other. His father. His uncle. Feth, for all he knew the man was probably being pulled by someone else's strings. It was simply how the world worked.

Something poked against his fingers, his senses slowly returning. It was stiff, yet bendable. Straw. He was lying in straw. The smell of animal sweat wafted past his nose, making his eyes water. Was this how he would spend the rest of his days? Stuck in some purgatorial cow barn?

Something shifted in the dark then. Brand sucked in a painful, shuddering breath as he realized he wasn't alone. Forgefather save him, but was he going to be eaten now? To be devoured over and over by some beast of burden? He watched with dreadful curiosity as something edged closer into view. His teeth clenched as a massive pale hand slithered into view. Gray, wiry fur caked the back of its palm, more of it as a forearm appeared next, then a shoulder, before finally terminating at a massive neck surrounded by a nest of the same wiry hair.

"You are safe, child. I have taken you from the danger." A booming motherly voice said. It took Brand a moment to realize it was coming from the massive figure.

"Who?" he asked, throat bobbing to force the word out.

"I am known as Beslog, the Mother of Jotuns. Watcher of my children. The last of her kind." There was a faint rattle as the giant made a gesture, and Brand realized there were chains around her wrists.

"Where?"

"You are in the Mother of Forges, but more specifically you are in my home. I caught you before you could fall into the lavas below."

"How?" How am I still alive was what he wanted to say, but the pain of speaking was still too great. Memories danced in his vision. The hilt of the blackglass knife protruding from his stomach. His uncle's final words.

"I used my power to stitch you back together." The giant reached up and plucked a hair from her scalp, the glow of her yellow eyes all that he could see of her face. "As I have stitched my own children in times past."

Brand pushed past the pain as he weakly pulled his shirt up, fingers probing over where he'd been stabbed. Indeed, where once was open flesh, now there was a finally made seam. Strong and rigid, as if he'd been knitted with wire.

His voice croaked as he realized what the giant had done for him and she bent down and lifted his head with one finger, finger and thumb gently tipping a dribble of water into his mouth. He drank greedily, relief washing through him as his tongue peeled free from his mouth.