Frost Moon

Frost Moon Part 12

The pack was making good progress through the passages. Herlovsen and his men were up front, dashing through the detonating booby-traps. They stayed mostly unhurt thanks to their Italian battle armors. The suits were turning out to work surprisingly well now that they were in a non-arctic environment. They passed through the caves where their prey had slept, thankful they didn't have to face anyone manning those fortifications, but when they closed in on the portal cave, they were met with a hail of gunfire. Only their armor gave them time enough to throw themselves back into cover. The easy progress had made them a bit overconfident, the suits making them feel almost invincible, so Herlovsen ordered Berg to ignore the spray of lead and lead the charge. Berg had no option but to follow orders, so he charged bravely.

The running soldier collapsed screaming and gurgling as the unseen defender placed a bullet in each of his fairly unprotected kneecaps. Nobody felt particularly keen on rushing forward to help. Judging from the amount of blood gushing out, they knew that Berg would stop screaming soon enough.

'That was pretty accurate shooting, boss,' Erikka said, a master of stating the obvious as always. 'This'll hurt.'

Katherine cleared her throat. 'Ludvig? Do you have anything in your bag of tricks that might help?'

'Sure thing, Kat' the dwarf said and took a box out of his saddlebags. 'This ought to prove fun!' He grinned and revealed what looked like a grenade-sized Easter egg. 'As long as we don't drop it on the floor. Throw this little baby as far up the tunnel as you can; that ought to give us enough cover,' Ludvig said and handed the egg to Katherine

* * *

Even though the caves had become quite cold, Elisabeth had broken into a sweat. She was almost ready to open the gate. Red streaks ran from the sigils she had carved into the skin of the chanters, and the plastic "chalice" loomed on the altar in the middle of the pentagram, pregnant with powerful blood. She started to invoke the name she had found in the grimoire, hoping her pronunciation wasn't too far off.

Suddenly, a large ball of greenish fire appeared over the cup. It was a cold fire; unnatural flames that sucked up all warmth. Even the beads of sweat on her forehead froze. Geir was holding up his candle, standing there with clenched teeth, like a statue, stubbornly focused on doing his part. The other candle holder was much less like a statue. Eirin was pale and her arms were shaking visibly as she struggled to hold her IKEA candle up. The other three candles sputtered and went out.

Eirin gasped as a flaming tentacle emerged from the green fireball, its tip plung inginto the cup to consume the blood. They stared as it rose from the empty container, drunk with power. With a loud, wet noise, the tactile member split into five appendages. Three of them started floating towards those in the circle, one hovered over the body of Bjørn, and one snaked towards Tor, who was oblivious to what was going on behind him. A large white oval appeared on the cavern wall.

'Ghurlax! What the fuck is going on?' Elisabeth was getting worried. If that was her portal, it had the wrong color. Right now it seemed to lead to some bright and shiny place where she probably wouldn't be welcome at all.

'Don't worry boss,' the rasping voice echoed in her head. 'The portal is neutral at the moment. It's active – but it isn't set for any destination. That's what we need to do next - set it for the nice and warm place we're going. Let's hope that's what the demon you just summoned is here for.'