They were on a black stone beach. Eirik took a step and slipped as his boot encountered slick pebbles instead of hard earth. He stumbled and caught himself, cursing. The ocean rose in a familiar, ominous form.
"Wave!" Eirik yelled, and grabbed Alfdis, crushing her to his chest as he anchored himself to the ground, tightened every muscle in his body, and held his breath.
The icy water crashed over them. Alfdis shrieked, but they withstood both the impact and the swift, relentless pull back out to sea. As the waters retreated, Eirik shook his dripping head roughly and yanked Alfdis away from the shoreline. "Come on," he urged, "the next one's building already." Salt prickled on his lips and burned his eyes.
Alfdis stumbled after him and the next wave fell harmlessly in their wake; foam surged around their boots. Eirik paused just beyond the water's reach to catch his breath.
"I'm soaked!" Alfdis wailed. "Who on earth thought this would be a good place to put a gate?"
"Who goes blindly through the hidden gates?" a stern voice demanded from behind them.
Eirik whirled. A tall, slender form was silhouetted in a gap between the surrounding rocks. In the darkness, he could not make out the man's features, but his voice had an authoritative ring.
Alfdis gulped at his side. "It," she stuttered, "it is I, Alfdis Halkellsdottir. I come as called."
There was a long silence. Eirik unobtrusively shifted his stance and let both hands hover around his ax hilts.
"Do you also," the tall man asked finally, "answer to Alfdis Sigridursdottir?"
"I do," Alfdis confirmed without hesitation, her voice ringing proudly.
There was another, shorter hesitation, and then the man tendered a slight bow. "My deepest apologies... Halkellsdottir. I did not intend... you to hear the summons. Nor did I suppose you would have learned to follow the gates. I fault the strength of the pull. Your forgiveness."
"She might have drowned," Eirik exclaimed angrily, ignoring the horrified glare his sister fixed on him.
The man walked forward slowly, emerging into the moonlight as platinum haired and fine featured. Wrinkles touched the corners of his eyes, but the eyes themselves looked ageless, luminescent, dark silver. His otherworldly beauty was marred by the arrogant twist of his lips. "Who is your manservant, Alfdis?"
"He's not my servant," Alfdis told the stranger nervously. "He's my brother. My—my half brother." She shot Eirik a scalding look, as if this were his fault.
One elegant white brow lifted. "So," the man said. He turned to consider Eirik with his piercing silver gaze. "You are the priest's son?"
Eirik straightened to his full height, which matched that of the older hulduman—for he could be nothing else. "I am Eirik Audunsson," he said boldly. "My father is a Christian priest of the Ice Island, and my uncle is Thorgeir Thorkelsson Ljosvetningagothi, Lawspeaker of the Island."
"A fearsome lineage, young Eirik," the hulduman told him gravely. "But not one that will aid you now. Our world is forbidden to men. I risk much, allowing little Alfdis passage, but it seems to me now that she has come too far on her own for certain lessons to be safely neglected. Once, perhaps..."
"Why the summons?" Alfdis interrupted. "Is it a birth?"
The man turned his solemn gaze on the girl. "No, Alfdis. It will be an execution. First a trial, of course, but there's little doubt, now. Even with the Prince missing. It is the opening gamble of a long war, we fear, and so the families call their own to them."
"I'm not leaving her alone in a war," Eirik said firmly.
Silver eyes blinked slowly, and then the world was wiped away.
Eirik drew his axes before their new surroundings had solidified. He leapt deftly around the tall hulduman and balanced one blade against his collarbone. "Alfdis," he said tightly. "Where is she?"
The man stiffened, then released a low chuckle. "So you have your mother's ferocity, Eirik, as well as her sunny looks." He held up a hand. "Peace! I would not hurt you, boy."
"I'm holding the ax to your throat," Eirik reminded him.
"Spoken like a priest's son," the man murmured. "Alfdis is safely where we left her, on the beach. I will return to her immediately."
"I'm going with you."
"No," was the cool reply. "You are not. The hidden paths are no place for human blood, and I cannot guarantee your safety."
"I can take care of myself." Eirik would have released his death hold, but he feared the man would vanish as soon as he did. "If it's not safe for me, it's certainly not safe for Alfdis."
"The world is not safe for little Alfdis," the man countered calmly. "Humans and huldufolk alike will fear and envy her ability to pass between and draw on the strengths of two worlds." He sighed heavily in Eirik's embrace. "Two worlds, equally cruel."
"I can protect her." Eirik forced more certainty into the words than he truly felt. "Let her return with me."
The man shook his head slowly, tugging fine platinum hair from Eirik's hold. "The dangers of our world, she must learn to navigate from the huldufolk. I promise you, no harm will come to her tonight. It will be a long war, as I said, and the night's only death has already been decided."
Eirik withdrew his axes and stepped around to face the slender hulduman. "Before the trial."
"Even so. The families gather to watch a killing."
"I don't like it," he said bluntly. "You're right. Alfdis's knowledge of the paths already far outstrips my own. But I do not trust you."
An expression reminiscent of pain flickered across the older man's face. "A Christian priest's wisdom, my boy. I will not try and persuade you otherwise. I can only promise to do my best to deliver Alfdis back to you before the day is through, and that I will protect her life with my own."
The damn elf sounded sincere. Eirik held his gaze for a long moment, then asked, "Who are you?"
The man's smile was brittle, cold, and beautiful.
"I am called Halkell."
Then he was gone.
Eirik cursed and slammed his axes back into his belt. He looked around. The eastern sky was just beginning to lighten. With a dull shock, he realized he knew where he was. In the next second, he wondered what he would have done if he hadn't recognized his surroundings, and in the next, it occurred to him that he had no idea whether he had been dumped all the way back into his world, or if he still trod a hidden path. That the trek home would take well over an hour only made his mood viler.
Alfdis had better survive the day, because he was going to strangle her himself.
It was in this black temper that Eirik tripped over the boy. Literally. One instant he was slogging towards the distant, jagged rise of glacier striped mountain, the only life for miles in every direction, and in the next instant the ground moved. With a yell, Eirik jumped to the side to avoid stepping on the body. He landed in ankle deep mud, slipped, and just barely managed to throw his weight forward to avoid falling onto his back. He spun and stared.
Had he imagined the movement? The prone body was still as death, half hidden under the light dusting of recent snow. Eirik approached warily and prodded one shoulder with his boot. There was no response.
He crouched down beside the boy and reevaluated his age estimate upwards. The young man was slender, and unconsciousness lent his ethereal features a childlike innocence. His skin was almost of a color with the snow, whether by birth or by death, Eirik couldn't say. His head lolled as Eirik carefully brushed aside fine strands of long black hair to press two fingers under his chin, feeling for a pulse.
"Away, mansspawn!"
The voice was a hiss. Eirik whirled as he leapt to his feet, axes falling into his hands. His pent up anger from the night's misadventures made him crave a good fight, and the dead boy didn't seem like he'd make a satisfying opponent. Eirik transferred his rage to whomever had dared sneak up on him.
It was a little girl.
Eirik gaped, his axes sagging. No older than eight or nine, she stood brazenly before him with a hand on either hip, bringing to mind a
black candle with her cloud of silver blonde curls above long, velvety black robes.
"I said away!" she repeated imperiously.
"I told you someone would see him." This came from behind Eirik, who spun and found himself staring at a little boy, of an age with the girl and in the same draping black velvet, though his dark hair was twisted up into a warrior's knot. Eirik planted his feet by the young man's head so that he could keep an eye on both children.
"Is this a hidden path?" he demanded.
The boy shook his head disgustedly. "See, even he knows you've no power over him here, in his world."
Eirik took that as a 'no', but the girl didn't seem to agree. She scowled and shoved curling wisps of silver from her eyes. "I have power everywhere," she said shrilly. She stuck out a skinny arm, palm open and facing up, and crowed as an ugly looking dagger materialized in her hand. She shot the boy a triumphant look. "It's like we were told. We kill him here, in their world, and his people will feel it too late to save him."
"Kill whom?" Eirik interjected.
"We've no quarrel with you, mansspawn," the boy said calmly. "Just move away from the pretty lad."
"You can watch us kill him, if you like," the girl offered generously.
It was the wrong thing to say. Eirik felt his lips curl into an unpleasant smile. "I don't think I will." Children might not have been his top choice for fighting opponents, but these two were making it very easy for him not to think of them as children, at all. They were fey, through and through, from their velvet to their magic to their careless cruelty. "Move, that is. I think I won't let you kill him." He said it like he would say, 'I think I'll have the cod instead of the capelin.'
Twin sets of ebony eyes fixed themselves on him. Eirik almost took a step back. Almost. Instead, he deftly unclasped and shook the weight of his cloak off his shoulders. He crouched low, axes held out and steady.
A feral smile crept across the girl's face. "You want to play!" she exclaimed merrily.
The boy frowned. "This is unwise," he warned. "The lad is more than half dead, already. Will you throw away your life for nothing?"
Eirik matched the girl's smile. "I said nothing about throwing away my life. The girl has the right of it. I want to play." A small part of his brain knew it was foolishness. He had no idea what the two child-beings were capable of, and he somehow doubted their confidence was mere baseless swagger. But in that instant, all he knew were the heat of his own anger and the fact that if he left them with the fallen young man, they would kill him where he lay, unconscious and helpless.
With that fear in mind, Eirik decided to establish himself as a serious threat sooner rather than later, so that he could maybe draw them away from the body. He locked eyes with the girl and took a step towards her. Before his boot hit the ground, he had sent one ax slicing through the air towards the boy.
He drew his sheath knife before registering whether the boy had managed to dodge. Even as he heard his ax clatter harmlessly against some rocks, the little girl flew at him, her long dagger raised high. Eirik blocked her thrust with his remaining ax and stabbed at the same time towards her face. She twisted away at the last second, though, and pranced back with a wild giggle. Eirik spun just in time to jump over the wide, swinging blow the boy aimed at his shins. The boy's dagger was longer and thinner than the girl's, but with the same jagged claws cut into the blade.
The little demons were fast. They fought with a frenzied wildness, hollering battle cries as they flitted around Eirik's guard, twin swooping swathes of black with deadly flashing blades.
Eirik let his rage unfurl to mirror theirs. He needed to be faster, as there was only one of him. If they were quick, though, the children did not seem unusually strong, and they did not fight as a team. Again and again, Eirik beat back their onslaughts unblooded.
The boy, he determined, was the better fighter. The girl had unnatural speed and a maniacal energy, but there was an erratic overconfidence to the way she hacked at Eirik with her evil weapon. The next time Eirik drove the boy back, he cut his follow through abruptly short and lunged at the girl before she was expecting his attack. She skipped backwards, raising her dagger.
Eirik used his ax to catch the dagger mid swing and force its momentum to continue until the girl was forced to abandon her weapon or overbalance. She shrieked and gripped the blade with both hands, letting her entire weight drag. Eirik lifted her easily, swinging her forward and onto his knife. The blade impaled her through the heart. Eirik drove it in to the hilt, then wrenched both knife and ax free. The small body tumbled down, vanishing before it hit the ground.
With a grunt, Eirik turned to finish the boy—and found him racing back towards the snow covered body of the young man. The child lifted his long blade as he ran.
"No!" Eirik cried out.
The boy was too fast. There was no way Eirik could reach him before he made it to the unconscious man. A desperate growl started deep in Eirik's belly, swelling up through his chest and ripping from his throat as a thunderous if rather puerile, "Mine!" He centered himself and took aim.
The darting boy fell just before he reached his target, a knife embedded in his back and an ax in his skull. By the time Eirik dashed to the spot, his body had disappeared. The jagged dagger remained, glinting ominously in the dawn. Eirik kicked it to the side and knelt by the motionless young man.
"Are you dead?" he muttered. In the space of a heartbeat, the clean fury of battle gave way to a much less pleasant frustration. He jabbed two fingers against the young man's neck, harder than necessary, and was only mildly relieved to detect a fluttering pulse. He was too cold.
More gently, Eirik brushed the snow from the man's head and shoulders. He started to gather him into his arms, then paused and stood to go back for his cloak, axes, and the weapons abandoned by the dead children, or whatever they had been. Eirik shoved both daggers into his belt with his axes, and then used the cloak to wrap around the young man. He lifted him easily, cradling him like a baby.
Then he hesitated, unsure of where to go. The closest village was an hour away, even if he ran as much of the way as possible, which wouldn't be significant with the dead weight he carried. The man needed warmth, and sooner than that.
He made his decision. Hefting the body, he turned and walked southeast, away from the villages and towards the glimmering gold horizon. There was a small thermal pool very close by. It was no more than a hole filled with water, but the rocks were hot, there, and they heated the water to pleasantly scalding no matter what the weather. Blankets and a fire could do no better.
Eirik knew these lands well, and strode purposefully through the desolate winter dawn. He took the most direct route, even when this meant trudging along lanes of mud or up and down knolls and hummocks. He avoided snow, which would slow him if it proved deeper than it looked. The stepping stones across the low stream gave him pause, but he slipped only once, and did not drop his burden. Light spread slowly, but the clouds had rolled in again, and he could no longer make out the sun.
The man stirred in his arms as they approached the pool. "N—no," he whimpered.
Eirik jostled him lightly. "Stay still," he warned. "You're safe." He did not stop, and they made it to the stacked rocks that fenced off one rounding corner of the hot pool. The waters steamed, giving off the faint scent of sulfur and other minerals. He circled the rocks and propped the man in his cloak up against them. Exertion had covered Eirik in a sheen of sweat, and he shivered as the cold air blew across his cheeks, neck, and too thin shirt.
The young man slit his eyes open. They were a crystalline silver, so pale as to look almost white, but bright with the life that the rest of him seemed to have forsaken. Eirik's heart thudded uncomfortably. Those dazzling eyes were not natural.
A fit of coughing shut both eyes tight again, and Eirik recalled that unnatural or not, the boy was on the brink of freezing to death. He turned on his most persuasive calm, and spoke quickly. "I found you in the snow. You're more frozen
than not, and we need to get you into the hot water. Okay?"
It was a gamble, asking for cooperation, but Eirik figured he could always overpower the fool if he thought to resist his rescue. But the man managed to jerk his head in assent, and he moved stiffly to allow Eirik to unwrap his own cloak. His hands moved towards the ties of his shirt, but Eirik pushed them gently out of the way and undid the knots himself. The material was a dark blue, roughly splotched like granite; it opened to reveal a soft white undergarment which Eirik lifted carefully over the man's head. His boots, soft deerskin, slipped off easily. Eirik helped him to stand, concerned that he didn't shiver; bare-chested, with ice still clinging to the hair that fell to his waist, the young man stood motionless. Last came trousers of the same blue cloth as the shirt, and a final, looser white under-layer.
Through it all, the boy remained mute. From the fineness of his clothes and his apparent lack of discomfort at being undressed by someone else, Eirik guessed he might be wealthy, and accustomed to servants.
Eirik knelt by the pool and helped the young man into the steaming water. The first steps always burned slightly, and sudden warmth could deeply pain flesh numb with cold, but the boy still made no sound. He slipped into the pool as if in a daze, settling against the hot rocks. His eyes drooped shut. The water came up to his armpits, and his long hair floated in a fan around him.
Eirik stood shivering in the frigid air for only half a moment before he stripped down and joined the naked stranger. The water was hot and wonderful.
"Wet your head," he instructed, splashing water onto his own head. "It will keep your body's heat from escaping."
The boy sank obediently underwater. When he rose, sparkling beads of water gathered above his lips and clung to his dark lashes. Eirik watched him through the mist of his own breath. Standing, the water came only to his slender waist. His long black hair stuck to the length of his back. His eyes, as he opened them, were silver, soft and brilliant.
"You're beautiful," Eirik breathed. He'd had his suspicions, but they hardened, now. "Ljuflingur," he accused throatily. Beloved, in the hidden tongue. Among his people, it was a curse hurled at lovers with false motives. It meant mischief, seduction, betrayal.
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