Interlude - Karalga

Karalga screamed, collapsing in grief on the charred and mangled body of her beloved queen. The partially melted remains of the precious crown sat in the dirt a few paces away. The castle was destroyed, smoldering with acrid smoke, a crater of stone glowing red hot. The untalkative wizard had blown himself up, and the murderer-kidnapper had escaped. Karalga wanted to rip their spines and pop their eyes, but they were not here, so she could only scream.

“I am the new queen! New queen! New queen!” Freya said, picking up the melted crown and putting it atop her head.

The nerve! As if Freya could compare to Her Majesty? She had no right!

Karalga shrieked. She had no words for Freya. She simply tore her throat and gouged her eyes, then took the crown she didn’t deserve, and stomped on her corpse until it stopped twitching.

“Karalga is the new queen! New queen! New queen!” Merida chanted from the side.

Several of the other harpies joined in on the chant. “New queen! New queen!”

Karalga did not deserve it either. She was nothing compared to Her Majesty.

But if they insisted.

She placed the melted crown on her head.

“Big command! Fix the castle! Fix the castle!” Karalga shouted.

Merida perched on a piece of rubble nearby, and tilted her head. “How to fix?”

Karalga screamed.

“Fix the castle! Fix the castle!” Merida chanted, flying over the remains of the nest.

But the castle was not fixed, and every day it was not fixed, Karalga ripped another throat and stomped on the corpse until it stopped twitching.

The harpies began piling rocks where the walls used to be, but they were mere mounds of rubble and detritus, not the miraculous structures they once called home. Karalga’s fury only built and built, and she became feared across the nest, for to look her in the eyes was death.

Then, on a cold and windy night, the surgeon arrived.

Karalga was sitting on a pile of corpses in her crater, chewing on the bones.

“Oh my. What happened here?” An icy and unamused voice spoke.

Karalga glared at him.

“You requisitioned my services?” He said.

The surgeon had six arms and two legs. He wore a black cloak that covered his whole body, and a velvet top hat. His face could not be seen, for he wore a pale clay mask with a bird beak and leather-rimmed glass eyes. Where his hands peeked out from his sleeves, they ended in thin chitinous appendages with three clawed fingers, like the feet of an insect.

“Your patients are gone! They are gone!” Karalga screamed.

“You mean to say,” the surgeon spoke slowly. “You called me all the way here for nothing?”

“Yes! We called for nothing! For nothing!”

“I hope you still have the treasure I was promised,” he says.

“Burned to cinders! Melted to slag! It was melted to slag!”

The surgeon twitched.

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“I missed the siege on Southrift Burrow for this. I had been hoping to see my new little babies in action, but I owed your queen a favor, and promises made must be promises kept.”

He leaned forward, his head tilting at an awkward angle to stare up at Karalga.

“Do you understand, little harpy? Promises made must be promises kept. Since you dare to wear that crown, you owe me both an operation and a treasure.”

“I owe you nothing! Nothing!”

She flew down and kicked him in the face. “Leave! Leave! You are useless! Useless!”

She suddenly fell over.

She didn’t understand. Why were her wings on the ground? Why were her legs not attached?

“Do not worry, little harpy. You will not feel a thing.”

He pulled a rusty metal syringe out of his robes, and plunged it deeply into Karalga’s throat.

When she woke, everything felt wrong. She moved, and there were too many things moving all at once. She rolled over. Merida’s corpse was on the ground, and it did not have any limbs.

Was she dreaming? Still woozy, Karalga looked down at herself.

She had four wings and four legs. She recognized the scar on her foot as Merida’s. When she reached up to touch her face with her wingtip, she realized she had an eye on her forehead, and one of Merida’s eyes had been gouged out.

The melted crown was not on Karalga’s head, but inside it, rotated sideways so that it could pass straight through her brain.

She screamed.

“Oh, you’re finally awake. You still owe me a treasure,” the surgeon said, sitting atop a large chunk of the castle wall, cleaning a sharp shiny knife with a bloody cloth.

“What have you done?! I am changed! I am changed!” Karalga screamed. “Undo it! Undo it!”

“No. Since you have nothing, I will take your servitude as my treasure.”

Karalga trembled. The surgeon nimbly slipped down from the chunk of rubble, and slowly walked towards her.

“You, and the rest of your wretched kin, shall swear yourselves to me and my king. You will give your wings and eyes freely, for my experiments.”

“No!” Karalga screamed. “I will not serve!”

“Then you will suffer.”

The surgeon stabbed a syringe into her throat, and this time darkness did not come.

Pain. Sheer, unimaginable agony.

She screamed, screamed, and screamed.

“Mercy! Mercy! I will serve! I will serve! Make it stop! Make it stop!”

But it did not stop. She screamed until her throat stopped working.

“So you will serve?” The surgeon finally asked three days later, as the pain finally faded.

“We—” Karalga choked out. “Serve.”

Upon the surgeon’s command, all of the harpies began the long flight to Ymirskrod.

The stitches were still tender as Karalga flew upon her four great wings. In a way, the surgeon had been merciful. He had given her more eyes and limbs. He could have given her less.

Poor Merida.

The keep of Ymirskrod was a sight to behold. A towering mountain was split down the middle, and in the gap was a castle made of eternally un-melting ice. It glittered a pale gold as the sun set behind them. Two bearded blue-skinned giants, as tall as twenty harpies, stood to either side of the portcullis. The gate alone was almost as large as their castle had been.

It was humiliating. How come the Jotnar could build something like this, when her harpies could only build piles of trash?

Though perhaps it was not so bad. This would be her castle now, even if she did not rule it.

The giants pulled heavy chains, and the portcullis opened for her and her harpies. They flew into a towering hallway of crystalline ice.

Jotnar were nailed to the walls, their massive bodies impaled by equally massive iron stakes. Some of them were still alive, their blood dribbling down and freezing on the ice.

Karalga did not stare, she kept her head low, and she landed on the thick woolen carpet.

She walked down the hall for what felt like hours, until she reached the throne chamber.

She did not dare to look, for she knew who sat before her. She could feel his presence towering over her nonetheless, the hissing of snakes, the stench of hate.

“The harpies have come to pledge their servitude,” a Jotnar guard’s voice rumbled.

There was a hiss, and a silence that stretched unto eternity. Karalga trembled.

She felt a snake coiling around her heart. Had the surgeon put it there?

Then the king’s voice spoke, hoarse and ragged.

“You will kneel before me, and speak my name.”

The weight of a mountain pressed down upon Karalga’s shoulders. She dropped to her knees with a thud. The impact rattled through her, and she foolishly glanced up at her master.

He was a Jotunn with black snakes for hair. His face was scarred and gnarled, and one of his arms was a twisted, deformed thing, ending in a limp claw of a hand. The other arm held a spear of pale grey metal. He wore the skins of his brethren, holes in the cloth where their mouths and eyes used to be.

His eyes were as inky black as the midnight sky, strained with veins, lids besieged by boils.

An invisible hand reached deep into Karalga’s lungs, and tore the forbidden name from her lips.

“SKALD!”