Releasing the table, Olaf stood, straightening his back as he helped himself to the ale.
“Keep an eye on them for now. Notify me of any changes.”
With a nod, the captain pulled back the pelt flap to leave.
“And, Thorer,” Olaf said.
Thorer stopped at the door.
“Send word to Vestfold,” Olaf ordered. “Advise the men to be ready to take up arms. I expect no less than a blood bath from the Seidkona.”
“What of her companion?” Thorer asked, clutching the pelt over the door.
“He is useless,” Olaf said, taking another thoughtful sip. “Kill him.”
Another nod confirmed his understanding and Thorer closed the flap behind him.
* * *
Silence settled over the glistening stones of Lorlenalin, leaving a deadening stillness in its wake. The thunder of Livsvann’s waters filled the cavernous stable with a dulled echo. Feet scuffed the stone and colossal shadows of black and orange etched the walls of the grotto.
Gudrun pulled her cloak tighter.
Within moments, Gudrun had saddled, bridled, and tacked the saddlebags on Daggon’s stallion. She took up Thor’s reins and doused her lantern light, submerging the stables in a bluish glow that seeped in from outside.
Before she had taken two steps, she stopped and slipped her hand into her robes.
“That’s my horse, woman.” Daggon’s voice matched the thunderous rumble of the waterfall, blending with the water’s roar. Gudrun jumped then relaxed, leaving her Seidr staff safely tucked in place.
“And it’s too early for an evening stroll,” he said.
“Go back to bed, Daggon,” she grumbled, continuing toward the exit.
“I’m involved now,” the captain said, leaning against the corral’s support beam and crossing his ankles as he crossed his arms. “You know I can’t turn my back on this.”
Whipping around, Gudrun released a flash that grazed his shoulder.
Daggon impassively glanced at the blackened beam. Inches from his face, the wood sizzled. He studied the slender Seidr staff extended from Gudrun’s palm. A line of smoke rose from the tip.
“Huh,” he said. “You must be really pissed to bring that out.”
“I’m going after Kallan,” Gudrun said. “Now mind your own.”
Her words wiped all the gaiety from Daggon’s face as he stared down the Seidr staff pointed at his heart.
“You are my own,” he said, pushing himself off the beam, undeterred by the threat she posed, “and so is she.”
Heavy with grief, Gudrun dropped her arm as she battled back the sudden rush of worry.
“Does Aaric know?” Daggon asked.
With a derisive snort, Gudrun shook her head.
“I can’t say that I blame you.” His voice rolled like rich amber as he studied the weariness in her golden eyes.
With a tug of the reins, she pulled Thor toward Livsvann Falls, but Daggon took hold of Thor’s bridle. There had been no mistake, the insurmountable wall of unspoken thoughts poised behind her stilled tongue.
Daggon leaned closer, forcing her eyes on him.
“You know something, woman,” he said.
“Where does your loyalty lay, Captain?”
The night’s blue light seeped from behind the falls and spanned his face, etching black shadows across the lines of scars.
“I’ve sworn to protect Lorlenalin,” he said.
Dismissing her challenger, Gudrun wrapped Daggon’s knuckles with her Seidr staff and gave a tug to the reins.
“Humph.” Gudrun pushed Daggon aside. “Then your place is here with your keeper.”
The clop of the stallion’s hooves filled the stables.
“You, of all others, know I would die for that girl,” Daggon said.
Thor stopped alongside Gudrun.
“You have the gift of Sight, Volva,” Daggon whispered, clasping Gudrun’s shoulders. “What do you know of Kira’s daughter?”
Gudrun released the reins and sighed.
“Aaric has abandoned all efforts to find Kallan,” Gudrun said. “He has proclaimed her dead.”
Daggon dropped his brow and gave a slight shake of his head.
“We know this.”
“But I can not See,” Gudrun said. “I do not know…” Her voice trailed off with her thoughts. “She’s somewhere. Alive. I feel it in these bones of mine. I just don’t know where.”
“If she were dead…” Daggon said, coming to stand closer to better preserve their whispers. His own voice hushed as if afraid someone would hear.
Gudrun nodded.
“I could see where and how, but…” Her voice was faint. “This is different. She isn’t dead. She’s just…out of reach.”
“In Gunir?” Daggon asked.
Gudrun was already shaking her head.
“They never made it to Gunir,” she said.
Daggon’s brow furrowed as he took a moment to think.
“Where was the last place you Saw her?”
“In the forest, off the road,” Gudrun said, “between here and Gunir. But something has since interfered…blocked my sight somehow.”
The thunder from the falls roared, filling the silence.
“I think Aaric tampered with it somehow. Blocked my Sight.”
“Aaric,” Daggon said. “How? Are you sure?”
“Ever since that night…there are things that don’t make sense,” Gudrun said, dropping her voice lower and forcing Daggon to lean in to hear. “I remember being in my chambers. I fell asleep, but remember almost nothing before then. I don’t remember falling asleep, or even being tired. But there’s more. When I woke, my Sight was…blocked somehow. And I see it in your eyes. When you speak about the Ljosalfar king taking Kallan, you have the same look in your eyes that I know is in mine.” Gudrun shook her head. “We’re not remembering right.”
“Why would you think Aaric—?”
“I know the spell that would be used. Aaric is the only one—” Gudrun swallowed the lump in her throat. She couldn’t tell Daggon that she suspected the spell had come from Under Earth. Only Aaric and she knew of such places. “I gave Aaric an elixir for such an occasion if a situation ever arose that needed it.”
Daggon thought for a moment, assuring her that he believed her lie.
“Where were you going to look?” Daggon asked.
Her grief vanished as her convictions hardened. A finger twitched on her Seidr staff.
“You will not stop me,” Gudrun said.
“I’m not here to stop you,” Daggon said, undaunted by her ferocity and matching her absolution. “I’m here to join you.”
He flashed a smile, but before his next footfall touched the ground, Gudrun snatched Daggon’s arm and held him at her side. Aaric’s cold glare emerged from the shadows that had been empty moments ago.
“I made my orders clear,” Aaric spoke through a tightened jaw. “My answer was precise.”
Gudrun tightened her grip on Daggon’s hand, the Seidr staff weighed heavily in her other.
“You will not stop me, Aaric,” Gudrun said. “My kin is out there.”
Daggon squeezed her hand and Gudrun eased her grip on the staff.
“No one wishes Kallan were alive more than I,” Aaric said, taking a step closer. Daggon glanced at the sheathed sword at Aaric’s side, but the High Marshal made no move to draw it.
“Then let us look.” Desperation lined her words. “You’ll have lost nothing if we look.”
Daggon shifted his eyes from shadow to shadow and concluded that Aaric was alone.
“I’ll have lost a healer,” Aaric said.
“There are others,” Gudrun argued.
“Kallan is dead!” Aaric shouted, forcing Daggon’s attention sharp. “Lorlenalin is weak and I can not waste what man power we have searching for the dead.”
“We are only two people,” Daggon said.
“You are this city’s captain.” Aaric took a step closer.
“Then I’ll go,” Gudrun said. Her hand tightened on Daggon’s arm.
“You will stay.” Aaric took another step.
“I am Volva!” Gudrun’s voice rang through the cavern, adding to the thunder of Livsvann. “I have pledged allegiance to no one but my kin.”
“Lorlenalin’s people require your services.” Aaric moved his hand to the pommel of his sword.
Gudrun twitched, and Daggon tightened his hold on her hand, keeping her beside him. Rage flashed red in her golden eyes.
“You have forgotten your place,” she said.
Aaric’s eyes darkened. “Mind your own.”
“You have no home here, High Marshal.” Her voice lilted in mockery at the title. “Go back to your keepers and your whore.”
Aaric tightened his hand on the hilt of his sword as Gudrun’s Seidr staff moved. A flash of red light and golden Seidr collided and the stable horses reared as the cavern filled with a deafening bang.
All was white.
Daggon’s heart thundered in his chest. The room was silent save for the sound of air passing through his chest. Grappling on the ground, Daggon brushed the stone.
A magnified, sharp staccato drummed Daggon’s head then rippled like a single drop of water. Its echo cleared, leaving the silence behind, then another…louder this time. His pulse banged his chest in between each drum. A boot struck the ground, and a third drum echoed. A blur appeared through the white. A black shape that became Gudrun’s body formed in Daggon’s sight and the white faded. The stables returned.
A long scrape of metal against metal rang in Daggon’s ears. Blue moonlight glistened off the sheen of Aaric’s blade as the high marshal raised his sword, rearing to strike Gudrun’s unconscious form, and Daggon lunged, unsheathing his blade.
The sharp twang of his sword striking Aaric’s confirmed he had moved in time. Beneath their blades, Aaric peered down at Kallan’s Sentinel.
“You.” Aaric creased his nose in disgust. “You dare cross arms with me?”
“She’s an old woman,” Daggon said.
Hate rolled from Aaric’s eyes.
“There is no room in my court for deserters!”
With every bit of strength he had, Daggon shoved up and against Aaric’s blade, knocking the high marshal back and off balance. Sheathing his sword, Daggon stood and lifted Gudrun from the ground while Aaric stared, stunned, unmoving, his sword hanging idle at his side.
Without a word, Daggon carried the old woman to the stallion, lowered her limp body into the saddle, and collected the reins.
“Nidingr!”
Aaric’s voice filled the stables and Daggon stopped, his foot fall frozen to the stone.
Fingers curled into white fists as the word ripped through the captain. He knew what the challenge meant.
“Nidingr,” Aaric said, holding his blade at his side, forgotten.
“You would have me choose between my queen and my citizenship?” Daggon’s face contorted with rage. Then, without another word, he led Thor to the passage beneath the falls.
“If you set foot from these walls, who will remain to defend your honor?” Aaric cried.
Daggon was almost gone now.
“You will wander the earth! You’ll be nothing but a rogue who has forsaken his honor!” Aaric’s voice cracked a shy breath from madness. “Nameless!”
The waters of Livsvann swallowed Aaric’s words.
“Fool!” Aaric cried. “Where will you go? Who will have you now that you’ve abandoned Lorlenalin?”
Peering over his shoulder, Daggon met Aaric’s madness with the cold emptiness of his own resolve.
“My queen is lost to the world,” he said. “I will walk the world over to bring her back so long as she requires my aid.”
“She is dead!”
The waters of Livsvann roared, filling the void between them.
“Until I see a body,” Daggon said, carrying Gudrun’s own vehemence in every word, “I will be found in Kallan’s services.”
Daggon vanished into the darkness beyond the echo of Livsvann Falls.
CHAPTER 60
Bergen studied the black sky, engrossed with the single thought that had plagued him since the waning moon. His whitened knuckles gripped the stone of the window’s sill, paying no mind to the silent shuffle of Geirolf’s footfall.
Geirolf stopped beside the berserker and looked to the sky for the answer to his question.
“The sky is black,” Bergen said. With a smile, he looked at the old man. A glint of mischief gleamed in his eye. “We ride.”
With a subtle jump in his step, Bergen strode from his sitting room to his chambers. Bottled energy from weeks of waiting burst from his chest. Geirolf doubled his pace to keep up.
“Bergen.”
“Wake the men,” Bergen called, not wasting the time to look back. “We leave now.”
With a nod, Geirolf closed the door of Bergen’s bower and descended the steps to the Great Hall.
After lacing his boots, Bergen fastened his trousers and buckled a piece of leather armor over the tunic he slipped over his head. With a final glance back, he took up his great sword emblazoned with “Uthbert” and closed the door behind him after Geirolf.
The castle was already awake and buzzing by the time Bergen plodded down the stairs, eagerly bouncing off every step. He crossed the wide Great Hall while he finished strapping his sword to his back. With a boom, he opened the doors wide and entered the courtyard.
“Bergen!”
The shrill voice came from a petite woman with sharp cheekbones and a narrow nose. Her skirts swept the stone as she marched at him head on. Her hair, usually twisted and fastened to the top of her head, flowed freely in streaks of silver and brown down her back. Diverting his path, Bergen hastened his pace and met the woman in a wide embrace.
“Lady Torunn,” he cried, picking her up by the waist.
Barking a laugh, he spun her around and lowered her back to the ground, kissing her hard on the mouth before letting her go again.
“Keep those off of me,” Torunn scolded. “Odinn knows where they’ve been.”
With a second laugh, Bergen added a skip to his step and was on his way again with Torunn quick on his heel.
“Geirolf tells me you leave tonight,” she said.
“Right now,” Bergen said, flashing his smile.
“Where will you go?”
“Wherever I need,” Bergen beamed.
The warmth of the stables and sweet scent of hay enveloped him as he passed through the open doors. Several war-men saddled their horses, while others led theirs from the stables.
“I figured we’d take the horses across the Klarelfr into the valley,” Bergen said as he saddled his slate-gray destrier, as black a gray as the fire worms of Muspellsheim. “Then, if we need to, we’ll take our search to the ships and go beyond the Raumelfr.”
“And what of the throne?” Torunn asked as she scuttled behind Bergen.
“Well, I wasn’t going to bring it, but if you think we shoul—”
“Bergen.”
He tugged at the saddle’s strap and matched Torunn’s stern brow.
“I’ve left it to Geirolf,” he said somberly.
Lowering her eyes to the stable floor, Torunn nodded and squeezed her fingers nervously. With a smile, Bergen clasped Torunn’s knotted hands.
“Don’t fret.”
She glanced up at the scar glistening on his brow.
“Be well,” she said then shuffled from the stables. He was busy again with the saddle, when Torunn called back from the door.
“Bergen.”
He met her round, gray eyes.
“Come back with Rune,” she said.
Bergen grinned. “Always.”
With a smile she quelled too often, Torunn left Bergen to his horse. The saddle was buckled, the reins secured, and Bergen’s back, slapped by Geirolf.
“The kitchens are ready with stock,” he said, dropping a pack of dried
pipe leaf into Bergen’s hand. “All who ride with you are waiting or getting ready.”
Geirolf leaned closer, his previous jubilant energy, replaced with a solemn tone.
“Where will you start?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Bergen flipped the flap of a saddlebag closed and pulled the rope taut.
“The forest of Alfheim where I saw him last,” Bergen said with a darkness that enhanced the black of his eyes, “then on to Swann Dalr.”
“Rune left a moon ago,” Geirolf said. “Any trail left will be gone.”
Bergen finished the final buckle on the bridle, tugging at the strap to ensure it was secure.
“I’m not looking for a trail.”
“Bergen.”
Bergen swung the reins over the mare’s head, and began stuffing some final rudiments into his pack.
“Torunn worries,” Geirolf said.
“Of course she does,” Bergen retorted. “She’s a woman.”
“Bergen.” The old man dropped a hand onto Bergen’s shoulder, forcing his full attention. “There are reasons why Rune hasn’t returned. She insists something went wrong.”
“Don’t think I haven’t reached the same conclusion,” Bergen said.
The light-heartedness was gone from his voice.
“You’re as worried as the rest of us,” Geirolf said below his breath. “Be cautious. Be ready.” He gave Bergen’s shoulder a shake.
With a nod, Bergen strapped his pack to the saddle, and took up the reins.
“Alright, Zabbai…” Bergen said and patted the mare’s neck. “Let’s go.”
Leading Zabbai from the stables, he pushed through the crowded stalls of rider and horse. The cold night air punched his senses, rejuvenating his jovial energy. With a final once over and adjustment, Bergen pulled himself onto his horse as the last of his riders filed out of the stables.
“Bergen,” Geirolf called, coming to stop at Bergen’s side. “He may have crossed into Midgard.”
Bergen looked across Gunir’s yard to the tall, stone gates. Beyond the fortress and the bailey, longships lined the docks in the lake where the Klarelfr cut through and around Gunir. Further still were rolling fields riddled with rivers that met the pines of the Alfheim Wood, and at their end, the Raumelfr divided the Alfar from Midgard. “The world of Man is not like ours,” Geirolf said. “Things change quickly there.”
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