Here is the next chapter. Enjoy :)

Chapter 2

The young woman, propped on one elbow, stared at Roger long and hard, the wildness in her eyes slowly fading as his promise they would not harm her registered. She gave a start then, realizing she was not wearing a shirt, and moved to cover up. She calmed then, as she saw her upper torso was covered and tightly wrapped in white bandages. She pulled her blanket up before her chest anyway. Then she eased back down, for her elbow was starting to quiver from the effort of keeping herself propped up.

''What happened to me?'' her voice was weak. ''And why am I in bandages?''

Roger exchanged a glance with his daughter. ''I found you half buried in a pile of snow on one of my scouting trips,'' he said. ''I thought you dead at first, for you had clearly been caught by that avalanche, and add to that a serious wound in your side. But you were still alive, and you were also glowing, though I am not sure what to make of that. And so I brought you here, where my daughter treated your wounds. You are lucky she is skilled at putting together healing salves, else surely you would have perished.''

''Can you not remember what happened to you?'' Catherine asked.

The young woman did not answer right away, and judging by the way that her brow furrowed, and by the strained look that crossed her face, she could not answer. Then she just shook her head helplessly.

''But can you remember your name?''

Again the young woman just shook her head, her expression frustrated to the point where Catherine wondered if she might start crying.

''Do not worry,'' Roger said. ''I have seen this before, and know that your memory should return in time. You have been through a lot, after all, and the strain your body has gone through might simply be messing up your memory.''

''But until then we have to call you something,'' Catherine frowned thoughtfully. ''I know, how about we call you Birgitte until you get your memory back?''

''Birgitte,'' the young woman echoed, seeming pleased, then she nodded.

''Alright then,'' Catherine said, rubbing her hands together briskly. ''I will bring you something to eat, and then you must rest. My healing salves may have closed your wound, but your body will take some time to recover from the shock of your ordeal.'' She moved to leave, but then she stopped and turned about. ''By the way, my name is Catherine, but you can just call me Cat. And that is my father.''

''Roger is the name,'' the large man said with a smile.

Birgitte offered them each a weak smile, then they left the chamber.

xxxxx

Malice sat on the floor of her room, legs crossed beneath her, hands resting palm up on her knees, lavender eyes closed, deep in meditation. She was using Gleipnir to search her body for something that might explain what had happened to her the other day. It had felt like the prelude to a heart attack, but search as she might, she could find nothing that would cause such an ailment in her body. And if she could not find the root source of her ailment, she could not cure it. The sudden anger caused by that realization broke her concentration, and she awakened from her trance. For many long moments she just sat there on the floor, seething.

But then a wave of nausea washed over her and she rocked backwards and fell flat, her vision swimming. For a moment she thought this to be another stroke, but she learned the truth of it then, as images flashed behind her clenched eyelids. She could see the ruins of Boddai's monastery, the ruins of the place she herself had destroyed. For a few moments she was confused, for she did not know why she was seeing this, but then she saw the hint of a blue sparkle amid the rubble. The images faded, and a smile spread across her face, as the truth of her vision came clear to her.

xxxxx

Keiran McCann sat on his throne, chin resting on the up raised palm of one hand, his sharp emerald eyes taking in the uniformed man standing before him. ''Report, scout lieutenant,'' the young king said in his heavy Irish accent. The man had just returned from a dangerous scouting expedition to the outer villages of his kingdom. One of the invading gihox armies had passed through there already. The young king wanted to know if his subjects had managed to flee into hiding before the giants arrived. Still, a part of him was afraid of the news, for he feared and suspected that his subjects had all been slaughtered.

''Many of the outer villages have been captured by the gihox,'' the scout said. ''They are now used as satellite camps and supply towns by the enemy.''

''And my subjects?'' Keiran asked, his voice harsher than he had intended it to be.

''We saw no bodies, though we dared not venture too near the towns.''

''Well done,'' the young king sighed. ''Go take your rest. You have earned it.''

The scout dropped a respectful bow, then exited the throne room, leaving Keiran alone with his thoughts. The young king settled back in his great chair, though he hardly felt the comfort its velvet cushion offered, too consumed was he by the news. The possibility his subjects might have escaped the gihox brought some semblance of peace to the man. But then his thoughts turned to the invaders, and to the supply towns and satellite camps they had apparently converted the sacked villages into.

He had not had to deal much with the gihox in the past, for they had mostly kept to the mountains. But from those few instances when they had attacked towns, he knew they were not a very organized bunch. The raids had usually been performed by individual tribes, and even when more than one tribe had banded together, the evil giants had always started to fight amongst themselves, making it relatively easy for the united humans to drive them back to their mountain holes. So why were they so organized all of a sudden, and how on earth could they have banded together in such unbelievable numbers?

''These are dark times,'' the young king muttered under his breath.

xxxxx

The night was still and undeniably beautiful, with the moon sitting full in the sky, bathing the land below in the soft, peaceful glow of blue silver. That stillness was interrupted abruptly, as something large and terrible crossed the sky, cutting right past the moon. For the brief instant the thing lingered in front of the silvery ball, its silhouette could be seen clearly. It must have been thirty feet from horned head to sinuous tail, and it flapped a huge pair of leathery wings, that stirred the leaves of the trees and bushes below.

Malice peered at the ground below with her slitted reptilian eyes, terrifying orbs with purple fires seeming to burn behind them. Before long the dragoness spotted the place she had been searching for, and swooped down, upturning her wings at the last moment. She skidded twenty feet along the ground, claws drawing lines in the hard stone. Her fiery gace snapped about to regard the ruins of the place where Boddai had lived for centuries. The dragoness walked among the rubble, keen eyes searching.

Malice came to the edge of the crater that had once been the kairu vault, and down there she caught the hint of a blue sparkle amid the blasted rubble. Her neck snaked down, slitted eyes seeming to glow all the brighter with excitement. She pushed some debris aside with her great horns, which protruded like lances out from above her eyes. Then she paused, scrutinizing the small object before her. The corners of her fanged maw quirked upward in a caricature of a smile, made all the more horrible by her jagged fangs. The object was an orb, roughly the size of a tangerine, and encased in blue ice.

The Cataclysm Stone.

To be continued...