Valkeryn 2: The Dark Lands Read Free

scents of the huge bowl-shaped valley spread out before him. From where he sat high on the cliff edge he felt he could see forever. Perhaps it was the height, or the fact that there was not an ounce of pollution in the crystal air.
    He let his eyes move over the landscape; it was strange, almost prehistoric. If this was still Illinois then it had folded, sunk, and rearranged itself into something that looked completely primordial.
    He waited for his heartbeat to settle. Blankets of floating mist hung in patches over the tree canopy. There was what looked like a volcano’s crater-topped mountain to the west, and on the far horizon something glimmered in the weak morning sun, maybe a river or a lake. He’d look at Vidarr’s map again to check the jungle’s lumps, bumps and contours against its vaguely drawn landmarks.
    Arn reached into his pocket and retrieved the only remnant from his own time – a pocket knife. Its small oval shape still shone, and pressed into its side was a compass the size of his thumb nail. He held it flat and waited a second or two for the tiny arrow to settle… north-east to the lake, river or inland sea, or whatever it was gleaming in the distance.
    And then?
    He grabbed a stone and started to draw on the rock as he let his mind wander. He scratched lines into the hard granite. He had originally planned to travel until he found what he hoped might be a sealed bunker with the gauntlet and lightning bolt insignia on its front. He pulled out the fragment of ancient parchment the old Wolfen Vidarr had given him; he knew the place; he had seen it himself a year ago. He snorted. Perhaps a million years ago.
    He scratched some more lines.
    If he found it, after all the hundreds of millennia, would he be able to be open it? Would there be anything inside other than a deep decrepit hole that, in the old archivist’s own words, ‘might contain things that crawled up from Hellheim itself’? Stay in the light, he had been warned.
    He grazed a knuckle as he carved, and he lifted his hand, seeing the small lines of blood, as well as the silver wolf’s head ring. Its snarling face and red eyes glared back at him, roaring out a challenge of the House of Grimvaldr, the kingdom of his friends. Now fallen.
    Eilif had given him the ring. He fiddled with it – still a little loose. It now seemed so long ago that it could have been a dream. He wiped his hand and finished his rock carving. He smiled at the words – Arn was here.
    ‘Arn who?’ he said to the carving and lay back, placed one arm under his head, and looked up into the rapidly brightening sky. Blue, a few clouds, It looked the same. It had been a year since he had fallen into this world. A place where his own people were nothing more than a myth or legend, and in their stead now lived creatures, whole races different to anything he had ever known.
    What would his grandfather have made of it all? Yuhica ee-hahn blay – the waking nightmare – he would have said ominously. Then the old man would have closed his eyes to think on it for a while, mumbling to himself, maybe even spirit walking, as he used to call it. Arn wished he were here now; he would have known what to do.
    Arn was Shawnee. His family was one of the last few true bloods left in the state, and he’d spent years cutting his hair, ignoring his heritage, and forcing his body into normal clothes so he could conform. Looking like everyone else was, to him, more important than who he really was.
    He sat forward and examined his hands and arms. The skin was darkly tanned, the muscles in his arms bulged and were whipcord strong from days of climbing. His long black hair was pulled back with a cloth band around his forehead. Now he probably looked more like a Native American than even his grandfather had.
    He smiled ruefully.
    Here, being a red man, or white man, or even a blue man didn’t matter. Just being human was different enough – enough to get him killed and eaten. He still had the