Winter of Our Discontent Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Llaughing Llama Media LLC

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  Other Books by MH BONHAM

  A Quick Note to My Readers

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Become a Preferred Reader and Get a FREE Book!

  Chapter One

  Other Books by MH BONHAM

  Winter of Our Discontent

  Book Eight of the Ironspell Chronicles

  MH Bonham

  Llaughing Llama Media LLC

  © 2020 by M. H. Bonham.

  Published by Llaughing Llama Media, LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

  Cover by M.H. Bonham.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  For Larry, who is highly amused by it all.

  A special thanks goes out to my small army of proofreaders. Without you, I’d be floundering with this. Thanks to Steve Ryder, Noel Armstrong-Wade, Sabrina Annis, Val Ackroyd, and John MacDonald. You guys are amazing.

  And a heartfelt thank you to my readers. Really. Without you, there’d be no Ironspell Chronicles.

  Other Books by MH BONHAM

  The Ironspell Chronicles Series

  That Dragon was in No Way my Fault

  A Date with a Werewolf

  Alchemist Rules (Novel)

  Elfshot (Novel)

  The Trouble with Bats

  Wolfsbane (Novel)

  Oathbreaker (Novel)

  Winter of Our Discontent

  Hellfire (Novel)

  The Swords of Destiny Series

  Prophecy of Swords

  Runestone of Teiwas

  Lachlei

  Daemons and Shadows

  Serpent Singer and Other Stories

  The King’s Champion

  Other Books

  Howling Dead

  Samurai Son

  A Quick Note to My Readers

  If you’re following the Ironspell Chronicles, you probably have noticed a sudden change in numbering. It was my original intent to number the novels and leave the novelettes and novellas as standalones. Unfortunately, when Amazon started bundling my books, they left out all the unnumbered standalones, thus not notifying new readers of these short books. So, although Winter of Our Discontent is a standalone, I’ve been forced to include it and all the other shorts in the series so people can find them. There will be updates to the previous works to reflect the new numbering, as my time permits. Thanks for your understanding!

  Chapter One

  “Frosti, you’re a fucking idiot.” Kari, my Frost Giant father, clouted me upside the head again.

  I had blocked the first punch, but the second caught me off guard and spun me around, so he could whap me again. Not that I didn’t deserve it, mind you. After all a Jotun, or in our case, a Frost Giant, did have standards to keep, and I wasn’t known for upholding any of them. I rubbed my head and came away with blue blood—real blue blood, not the type Humans mean when talking about wealthy people.

  My name is Frosti, but I prefer the name Vetr. That means “winter” in the Norse tongue. Frosti isn’t a bad name for a Frost Giant, but my father wasn’t particularly interested of going with something more original. Too bad for me. At least he didn’t name me “hoarfrost” or “icicle.” Can you imagine the shit I would’ve gotten in school for that? But Frosti sounded like something you’d drink at Wendy’s, even though the fast food chain wouldn’t be around for another millennium or so. So, I chose Vetr because it sounded cool. No pun intended. Plus I wouldn’t get the grief over it the way I would with Frosti.

  Not that the local Jotun kids weren’t cruel enough. Everyone knew I was a sorry excuse for a Frost Giant. “Oh, there goes Vetr Karison,” they’d say. “Moron can’t even freeze a village.”

  That was only partially true. While it’s true that my father had forbidden me to use magic, once I had displayed an aptitude for it, I had found ways to learn how to cast and practice when he wasn’t looking. Only, now he had caught me in mid-spell.

  “How dare you disobey my orders? I’ll skin you, and make you into a new belt!” Kari took another swing at me, because back then there was no such thing as social services, especially among the Jotun. I ducked again and decided I had enough of his abuse, and fled. I didn’t bother to try magic on him, because even though he couldn’t cast, he still had enough magical mojo where he might be able to nullify my spell. And I sure didn’t need to look like someone beat the shit out of me yet again.

  Normally, homes among the Jotun are safe havens, even for monsters like us. But not for me. A lot of my abuse had to do with Kari’s birth order, and his apparent lack of magical powers. You see, grandpa is the Jotun king of Gottland, Kvenland, and Finland. If Kari had been firstborn, he’d be the next in line for the Jotun throne. But that fell to Ægir, his firstborn brother. And even if Ægir were to somehow disappear off the face of Midgard, Logi, the second-born would take over. That left Kari sucking hind tit, and mighty displeased with his back holdings. Especially because he had shown no aptitude in casting.

  The door slammed with a finality I’d never heard before as I left Kari’s home for what was probably the millionth time. Something, however, felt different, and I wondered if the old bastard had finally cursed me out of the home. Fine. Most Jotun, like mortals, depended on family; those who weren’t part of the kindred were vargr—wolves, or in the vernacular, outlaws. The concept of going vargr didn’t bother me much—lots of Jotun went vargr and they got accepted into outlaw gangs.

  “Oh look, it’s pretty-boy Vetr running away from daddy again.”

  I skittered to a stop just in time to see the asshole of the bullies, Trugar, round the corner with two of his hench-Jotun in tow. Like me, they had light blue skin and albino hair, but that’s pretty much where the similarities ended. You see, they were butt-ugly fuckers, even for Jotun. While not all Jotun are ugly, many hit a branch or two on the Ugly Tree, and as you might guess, these three had hit every branch on the way down, and then climbed up the tree again to make sure they hit each branch at least twice. Because they wanted to be sure.

  Like me, they wore woolen clothing, leather, and animal hides because no self-respecting Jotun farms. Despite them being the bullies of the Mark, they came from poorer families, though, in retrospect, what made them poorer and my family richer had to do with lineage and who got dibs first in this kindred. In other words, my family got first choice of everything because we were the nobility in this backwater place, and my grandpa’s name, Fornjótr, was well-respected.

  Not to mention we had magic. Real magic. You see, being Jotun, doesn’t give you inherited magical abilities. But being the grandson of royalty did. That was the only thing that kept these morons at bay was the threat that I might just do something with the magic inside me.

  Trugar carried a satchel that held something thrashing inside it. By the pitiful whimpering and howling, I guessed they had captured a wolf pup, which was maybe a few months old. These miscreants had no doubt been torturing it—as any Jotun progeny were wont to do.

  “Let go of the puppy.” I glared at them, my fear of Kari’s wrath forgotten.

  “Or what?” Trugar sneered and dangled the bag just out of my reach. “You’ll beat me up? You and whose army?”

  I knew better than to try for the puppy. Instead, I crossed my arms and met their gazes. “I don’t need an army to beat the shit out of your sorry asses.”

  “Oooh, I am so afraid.” Trugar tossed the bag to his lackeys; they dropped the puppy on the ground, and stomped on it. The puppy screamed.

  Something snapped inside me. Here were the bullies again, picking on a defenseless creature. Possibly killing it for no other reason than it was alive.

  “Stop it!” I snarled. Without thinking, I blasted them with an ice storm to end all ice storms, ripping them apart like leaves in a hurricane.

  For a second, I stood there, dazed. The only thing left was the wriggling bag. I recovered quickly, though, and laughed. It’d take them a week or better to reform themselves from the rime. If I were truly lucky, I actually killed them. And that was all right by me.

  Shocked? Well, you shouldn’t be. That’s how Jotun are.

  I scooped up the bag, and fled. The puppy inside wriggled as I ran, but I didn’t care. I had to get away from the village before someone realized what I had done to Trugar and his cronies. You see, even though they would most likely reconstitute themselves from the ice, the fact I had used magic in the village where my father ruled was tantamount to a death sentence.

  I ran deep into the forest, as far and as fast as my legs would carry me. Of course, it was lightly snowing, but it didn’t bother me, because I’m a Frost Giant—duh! The snow would make it problematic, though. Kari wasn’t the sharpest spear, but he was keen enough to recognize my handiwork when the bullies came up missing and follow my tracks. So I looked up at the sky and coaxed a bit more snow to fall. That way, in an hour or so, the new snow would fill in my footprints and make them indistinguishable from anything else.

  Only after I took a game trail that led away from the mai
n road, did I bother to check on the puppy in the sack. A lupine face greeted me, and at once, the puppy wriggled out and licked my face, quite exuberant that he wasn’t being abused any more. Kind of like me.

  I used my magic to check the puppy for internal injuries, and exhaled a sigh of relief when I found none. The little wolf pup looked maybe three months old. Fucking bastards. I hoped I had killed them.

  I set the puppy down and began trudging through the snow. The puppy yipped and followed me. I stopped as he padded up to me, his tongue lolling. “Look,” I said. “You need to go home. Wherever your home is.”

  The puppy just strode up and nudged me.

  Well, shit. I had a pet.

  “Try to keep up. I’m not going to carry you all the way.” I began walking again, and found that the puppy kept up for about a mile. Then, he sat down, and whimpered at me.

  I sighed, brushed the snow from his fur, and picked him up. He wriggled joyously in my arms and I laughed, despite the dire situation we were in. No food or water. No weapons. Only the clothes I wore.

  I sighed again. It’s not like I could freeze to death out in the cold, so I crossed that off the list. Other vargr were likely to attack me, but I doubted any had enough magic beyond basic folk magic. Certainly, it would be unlikely they had any training. Plus, I wasn’t truly vargr. I started walking toward the only place I knew that would welcome me for the night.

  As I trudged through the snow, the dark gray clouds released their quiet fury on the world beneath them. Despite the deepening twilight of mid-November, I wasn’t too concerned. The pup had fallen asleep in the crook of my left arm, and I was fairly confident I could summon a fat stag for the both of us, if I hadn’t found where I was going before it became truly dark.

  The last bit of daylight filtered through the overhead boughs when I came upon what looked like an abandoned cottage. Hewn from logs, the cabin reminded me of an over glorified lean-to. The snow settled on the thatched roof—for some reason, it didn’t bow under the snow’s weight. A small buck rail fence lined the yard where a small garden plot lay fallow, white with the current storm. An older roan mare pawed at the ground to try to get out what little dead grass lay there. She looked up and whinnied at me. The pup raised its head for a moment, snuffed the breeze and fell back to sleep in my arm. Apparently the horse was of no interest to him.

  My attention returned to the house. The only thing that looked sturdy about it was its door. Made from thick, sawed lumber, it was iron-bound, with cold-iron nails hammered into the frame. It was a warning and deterrent, of course. Against most Fae.

  I smiled at the irony—pun not intended—of the denizen’s intent.

  “Vetr, you’re early for your lessons.”

  Chapter Two

  I jumped, startling the pup, who yipped in surprise. I turned, chagrined at the voice’s owner. “Galdor, quit surprising me like that.”

  Iserngaldor shook his head, laughing. The Dark Elf mage had a weird sense of humor that I attributed to his Human blood. He was part of the Isernspell clan, but preferred to go by the more proper form of Isergaldor. I called him Galdor most of the time, because it irritated him—plus Iserngaldor is a mouthful to say in any language.

  “You need to pay attention to the subtle shifts in magic. What if I had been an Aesir?” The Elf crossed his arms, as if that made a point.

  “I would’ve run like Hel.” I stared down at my companion. Yeah, he was typically tall and lithe for an Elf, but next to a Jotun, he was short. Long black hair, dark eyes, and a face that looked more Elven than Human, Galdor was young for an Elven mage, but well past his hundredth year. I suspect he inherited the Elven immortality, or was at least very long lived.

  “You’d never get away if it were Thor.” He glanced at my newest charge. “What’s with the puppy?”

  “I took him away from Trugar and his cronies,” I said, looking down at the wolf pup. “I hate bullies.”

  “Midgard to Vetr! Of course they’re bullies. They’re Jotun.” Galdor motioned like he was knocking on his head. “They going to give you grief when you get back?”

  “Doubt it. I killed them.”

  Galdor’s eyes went wide. “You what?” My grim expression probably confirmed my statement. He sighed. “Come on, Vetr. Let’s get inside and you can tell me your story.”

  ~ * ~

  Galdor and I sat around the small firepit as he shared some vile stuff he called “tea,” while I told my tale, excluding the part about Kari. No sense humiliating myself there. The wolf pup lapped up a bowl of milk Galdor set down for him and curled up next to the fire to sleep. Despite my annoyance at suddenly acquiring a pet, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched the puppy sleep. Of course, I wouldn’t dare admit it to Galdor—I am a Jotun, and I have a reputation to maintain.

  The Dark Elf held out a kettle with what I presumed was more water and the leaves he probably scraped off the floor. “Here, have some more chai, it’s good for you.”

  “Ack, no!” I set down the cup and stared at him. “Why in Hel’s name don’t you have some decent mead or ale?”

  Galdor exhaled a theatrical sigh. “I’ve told you—I’ve quit alcohol. It’s bad for your brain cells.”

  “Whatever those are,” I grumbled.

  The Elf shook his head. “You know what brains are, yes?”

  “They’re the tasty part inside creatures’ heads.” I tapped a finger to my skull.

  He made a face. “Seriously, Vetr, that’s disgusting.”

  I chuckled. “No, it’s not. It’s good eating. Not my fault you’re a vegetable…”

  “Vegetarian.” Galdor looked annoyed. “The word is vegetarian…”

  “Vegetable…vegetarian…” I shrugged. “It’s all the same.”

  He crossed his arms. “No, it’s not. A vegetarian eats vegetables. Vegetables are for eating…”

  “Cattle are vegetarians. But cattle are also for eating. So, they must be vegetables too.” I puffed up proudly at my logic, but then cocked my head. “But you’re not for eating, are you?”

  “Only with the opposite sex,” he muttered.

  “What?” The confusion shown on my face.

  “Never mind that,” he snapped. “Suffice to say I am not for eating. I eat only vegetables, eggs, and dairy products.”

  “Thank the ancestors that.” I nodded. “I wouldn’t want my best friend to be a vegetable.”

  “Nor would I.” He shook his head. “Anyway, alcohol is bad for your mental acuity. That’s why I don’t have the stuff around anymore.”

  “Your loss.” I shrugged, struggling with the word ‘acuity.’ But I didn’t want to appear stupid.

  “Actually, my gain. Which brings us to the topic of what in Midgard made you kill your peers?”

  I sighed. “I told you they were going to kill the wolf puppy.”

  “Hmm.” Galdor didn’t look convinced. “You’d threaten your standing in the kindred because of a wolf puppy? Seriously, dude? I bet you don’t even have a name for him yet.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Okay, what is it?” He raised an arched Elven eyebrow.

  “Ulf,” I lied.

  “You’re naming your puppy ‘Wolf?’”

  “Why? It’s a good name.”

  Galdor shook his head. “I taught you to think, and all you can come up with is Ulf?”

  I turned to the wolf. “Hey, Ulf…”

  The puppy opened one eye, sniffed for a moment, and closed his eyes again. “Yeah, right.” Galdor chuckled. He then grew serious. “Why don’t you admit the real reason you left?”

  “What is the real reason I left?”

  “Sheesh, Vetr, you’re not fooling anyone. Every time I see you, you’re bruised up. Even now, you’ve got a Hel of a bruise starting on your cheek. Why is your father beating you?”

  “Kari isn’t beating me,” I said defensively.

  “Right, then is your mom beating you?” He raised an eyebrow.

  I threw a punch, but the little bastard was quick. “Leave my mom out of this.”

  Galdor raised an eyebrow again. “Hit a nerve?”

  “My mom’s dead.” I turned and stared at the fire.

  “I’m sorry. I apologize. I had no right to say that.”