Abomination

       Svanhildur drew her sword with the point forward and stepped smoothly towards the troll. Her hands were sweating and trembling, the wind tugged at the long sleeves of her new, fashionable woollen cloak, but at least it didn't throw her long hair in her face. That's it, she’d wear a braid from now on. Or make a haircut. She was already uncomfortable with her fancy cloak and impractical hairstyle among those gaunt rocks, among the harsh, shabby people in canvas jackets... And she didn't dress up on purpose, she had chosen something simple. She knew that the Norwegians should be impressed by knowledge and skill, not by metropolitan fashions. Svanhildur tried to gather her thoughts, but it was getting harder and harder to fight fear and disgust. The stones in the grass made it difficult to walk smooth and silent as the textbooks required. No sudden moves! The embroidered staves on the cloak (first task, by the way! With an excellent mark!) gave some protection from being found but did not make the user invisible. Of course, the troll could see her, or rather, smell her, it didn’t have any visible eyes in the pile of rotten, knarled flesh. It seemed as big as a giant to Svanhildur’s frightened eyes. It would not dare to climb out of the shadow of the cliff hollow to face the murderous sun, wouldn’t it? Odin’s underpants, let its fear of the sun exceed its urge to kill humans! Healthy humans, as the head of the Seiður Academy's military department would have said, but Svanhildur could not, for the life of her, see a human, even a sick one, in this mishmash of stone-hard warts, short spiky paws, and mandibles with a narrow, almost metre-long tongue snaking out. And the stench that made throat scratch and eyes water. It was like rotten fish but much more pungent. She was so lucky that her parents had spent some money and got her through the federal Dagrenning genetic programme, and now Swahildur had that reassuring Yes in the Immunity to Rash section. She would not become the same monster, ever. Still, there was a chance to become a smashed corpse. The sun in the mountains could hide behind a sudden cloud at any moment, and then... She could barely keep herself from looking back up at the sky. No, she had to do her task quickly and efficiently, to prove that the state funds spent on her birth and training at the Academy were not wasted, that Svanhildur daughter of Leif had not sat up late at night with her textbooks and copybooks for nothing, and that she was capable of deploying the Brottvísun stave in real-life conditions and not just at a training ground with a mockup. And it was not for nothing that she ran around the Academy between lectures while her classmates were out shopping—now at least she was not panting too hard after all the way up to the mountains from the training camp. Now, she held her breath and stepped even closer. And even if the sun decided to hide and the troll decided to test the strength of its skin and human head, there were hunters hiding behind the rocks, armed with shotguns, swords and halberds, and experience in grossling-slaughter. A graduate would not be left alone with a real monster, this was a practical exam, not a survival game. True, some hunters were missing fingers, others had horrible scars on their faces, and the prickling fear in her stomach and joints didn't care about reasoning. Fear and disgust wanted to get away. It didn’t matter. Svanhildur deemed herself stronger than some stupid fear, she would turn it to anger at this abomination. It should stop existing! She reached the proper distance from the troll and began to draw memorised lines in the air, catching the sun with her blade—it was made lighter for a woman's hand, but now it seemed heavy as cast iron. The sun was her drawing tool now, not paint or chisel. When she had completed an intricate pattern, she thrust the sword into the soil, stones rattling under the faded grass. Then she raised her hand pointing at the target, and prayed. No, words were not that necessary, rather, it took a specific state of mind corresponding to the stave, and prayer helped to get into that state. “Odin the Allfather, turn your eye to a daughter of men...” Lucky Grade A cats—they were also taking exams after their cat academy here and didn't seem the least bit afraid. There, three of them in half-collars bristled silently, pointing at danger with their paws and muzzles. "Freya the Giver, give power to my signs..." The troll squirmed, rumbled, jerked forward into the open but immediately spun backwards, howling in pain. Svanhildur tried not to breathe, it stank even more from the burns. "Aesir mighty and wise Vanir, show mercy to this soul, take it into your bosom, whether to Hel, to Valhalla, to the halls of Aegir..." Almost there! She stepped back to let the sun fall on the crystal disc tied to the hilt of her sword. The sunlight reflected into the shadow of the cliff, and the previously invisible pattern flashed in the air almost on the troll itself. Everything seemed to be right, all the closing circles and vector arrows were in place. The troll huddled against the rock, covering itself with its clumsy paws. The induced light burned him, and a black slurry of blood or pus oozed between its warts. Did those things have blood, or only liquid rot? Die quickly, you abomination, Svanhildur thought. The stave should have worked by now, sending the soul trapped in the thwarted body to its proper place. In the past, this complex pattern had only been used on ghosts that were not dead, which was rare, so it took some smart people a while to realise that if they turned that stave on a troll, the carcass would drop dead without its former soul, no need to waste ammunition. It should fall, experienced mages had already checked it in the field, they wouldn't include a non-aprobated stave in the curriculum! But the troll was not eager to die. It was still howling and writhing, and then it sprang forward, to Svanhildur. She only had time to step back, miraculously not tripping, when guns thundered from both sides, throwing the creature back a step, and three hunters with spears jumped down from the cliff. The troll made another dart, shaking them off—the men, even one woman, bounced easily, right on their feet, but the troll froze, and then fell sideways. The cats slowly calmed down, stopped arching their backs. Good riddance. The relief did not last long. In a minute, Svanhildur was silently cursing herself; she had the form of the stave wrong somewhere. Just where? Everything seemed correct, all the elements were in place. Well, at least the solar transfer was successful. But what would her grades be, after that? How many points would it take off? What if she didn't score enough to get assigned to the prestigious Norwegian garrisons of Aurland, Dalsnes, or Hitra? And she needed to do something about that fear of grosslings. Her stomach was no longer threatening to turn inside out, and Svanhildur stubbornly approached the troll's corpse. The hunters were poking the head of the troll—that is, the part next to the lamprey-like mouth framed in a circle of needle-like teeth—with their spears, just to be on the safe side. Black and green slime dripped from the spear tips. Others poured fuel on the carcass to burn the pest in place. The girl could hardly breathe through the stench but forced herself to look. If she wanted to serve in the army, she should get used to— She was called out. The head of the military department of the Academy, Maria, the kindest soul who accompanied the graduates to a practical exam in faraway Norway, and the local curator of young seiðkonas, a low-rank officer of the Norwegian armed forces, what was her name? Inger Larsen, right. Svanhildur strode to the call a little too eagerly and immediately chastised herself for the tiny relief of being able to step away from the troll. She walked slower, and the wind tossed her hair in her face at once, as if mocking her desire to show off in the wrong way. "I made a mistake in the pattern," she announced at once, so she wouldn't have to hear it from the others. "It's okay." Maria smiled softly as always. "It's an optional assignment, anyway. None of your classmates who chose it as an elective task have succeeded yet. I'll make sure that from next year onwards, it is removed from the exams. But you passed the basic programme with flying colours, you know. And you've shown great restraint. Aurland is waiting for you. Beside, it's good to find your weak spot now, with all the security measures in place. Don't feel bad, you'll just know it's not your strong suit, and you won't rely on it in critical situations." "And you didn’t make any mistakes in the pattern," the Norwegian woman replied with an accent, her voice unexpectedly melodic for her six-foot-two height and rough facial features. "The right form is important, but the content is even more relevant. The gods respond to honest, sincere people. You're immune, aren't you?" "Yes, Dagrenning, the immunity is confirmed," Svanhildur said clueless. What was it about? "Then it may be hard for you to see trolls as the humans they once were, because you, or your parents in a far, safe Iceland, will never be in their shoes. It may be hard for you to wish them salvation with genuine compassion." "But they are so..." For lack of words, Svanhildur waved her hand (her sleeve twitched in the wind) at the carcass, where flames were already dancing and crackling, and wrinkled her nose when the wind blew it in their direction for a second. How could this abomination be sympathetic to anyone? "Don't be too hard on her, Inger, wisdom comes with age." Maria rushed to her student's defence. "She can protect living people even now." "Yes. Perhaps," Inger said in her beautiful voice. "But sometimes I wish you'd let non-immunes join the military. They’d have it easier in some ways." Svanhildur didn’t answer, she wouldn’t want to argue with her superiors, on whom her career depended. But she took a chance to turn sideways, kinda to stop the wind from blowing strands into her eyes and mouth over and over again. Well yeah, trolls used to be humans, thanks Cap, but they are not humans anymore. And how could one feel compassion for them? She had only squeamish pity and no idea how to deal with it. And in no way could non-immunes be better than her.