Magick (The Dragonfly Chronicles Book 2)

by Heather McCollum

  “Did she take his disease into herself?” Bera breathed.

  Interesting question. Had she taken Ivarr’s disease into her or had it just used her body as a pathway into the ground? She’d never attacked a disease so strongly rooted in a body. A stronger breeze blew, and she trembled.

  A wool blanket lowered across her.

  “Where is she,” a distant screech pierced the hushed air. Svala.

  Merewin opened her eyes and blinked up into Hauk’s stormy blue orbs. Yes, there was concern there as Hauk looked back and forth from one of her eyes to the other. His hand brushed her hair back.

  “You look terrible.”

  “I need a bath,” Merewin answered softly.

  “Aye, you smell terrible, too.” Hauk scooped her up easily in his arms. “Like sickness.”

  The small crowd of people parted. “Look, the grass beneath her, it’s dead!” someone yelled behind them as Hauk carried Merewin away.

  Merewin could hear the ranting words of Svala coming closer.

  “Merewin, are you well?” Bera asked but then continued before Merewin could answer. “I hear you punched Svala right in that pointy nose of hers.” She lowered her voice. “She is a snake.”

  “Bera,” Hauk said low. “Svala’s had great loss, too.”

  “Hauk, I demand the life of your vicious thrall,” Svala yelled, her voice altered to a nasal whine with a rag clamped under it.

  Bjalki followed on her heals like a well fed hound.

  Hauk continued his swift gait toward his horse. “Bera, I’m taking Merewin back to Spring House. Tell Aslaug and Ragnar.”

  “Aye brother,” she said, but continued to trot next to them.

  “Halt!” Svala insisted and ran in front of them.

  Hauk stopped so close to her that Merewin felt her body brush Svala’s skirts.

  “Step out of the way, Svala. Merewin is weak,” Hauk began.

  “From healing Ivarr,” Bera finished.

  “I don’t care,” Svala hissed. “I demand retribution. Your thrall maimed me, Hauk. She must be taught a lesson, her place here.”

  “Svala, I will compensate you for your discomfort,” Hauk said trying to step around the proud woman.

  “Nay! I want retribution!” Svala insisted.

  Merewin tried to sit up higher in her perch, not wishing to appear the invalid. The effort caused her stomach to roll. A large bubble tumble up her throat. She put her fingers to her mouth.

  Hauk stepped around Svala and continued to his horse. “Can you stand?” he asked.

  “Aye, I think.” Whether she could or not, she didn’t want to look like a weak babe in front of the vicious woman.

  Hauk still held on to her.

  Svala ran up and snaked her hand around his arm. “Hauk, you can be the dominating barbarian all you want in my bed, but out here, I am in charge. I am the king’s sister.”

  “Sister-in-law,” Bera countered.

  Merewin’s stomach clenched and flipped. The thought of Hauk in Svala’s bed, pressing his lips to her, dominating her, tore a pain through her chest. The world swam and more noxious gas bubbled up her throat.

  “The same king whose child now laughs,” Hauk countered.

  “Put me down,” Merewin ground out. She wouldn’t be held like a baby before her enemy, for that’s what Svala was, an enemy. There would be no reconciliation with the woman who flaunted her sexual past in her face. At least Merewin hoped it was only in the past.

  Hauk let her slide down his body to stand between him and Svala, so close to the woman that the straight wool of their gowns shifted against one another. Svala refused to give any space, but leaned even closer.

  “I will see you pay for your crime,” Svala threatened. The evil woman wrinkled her nose. “By Thor, you stink.”

  The oily bubbling that Merewin had clamped down broke from her control, rolling up her gullet. In one great heave, Merewin leaned forward and vomited. The churned up remains of Vivien’s porridge washed all down the front of Svala’s fine gown.

  Svala took a small step back, silent horror contorting her features.

  Merewin felt Hauk’s strong hands clamp down on her shoulders, supporting.

  “Now ye stink too,” Merewin said, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

  Svala screeched as she looked down at her ruined dress.

  Bjalki unpinned her brooches to shed the outer layer of gown.

  Merewin turned in Hauk’s hands. “Take me home, Hauk,” she said loudly.

  Bera’s shoulders shook with hushed laughter, and most of the onlookers hid their amusement in coughs and hasty retreats.

  “Drink some water,” Gamal said coming up beside Merewin with a bladder of fresh water.

  Merewin took a sip and let the cool liquid wash her mouth and throat.

  Hauk lifted her onto his horse and swung up.

  “Thank ye,” Merewin said, handing the bladder back.

  Svala continued to rage so they talked loudly over her tirade.

  “Let Ragnar know of this,” Hauk said to Gamal, and his friend nodded.

  Bera smiled at Merewin, and speaking loudly, said, “you don’t look so bad now.”

  “A good purging can do wonders,” Merewin replied and fell back against Hauk as he tapped the horse forward.

  “I’ll visit soon.” Bera waved as Hauk spurred them to the forest’s edge.

  As soon as they ducked into the tunnel of trees, Hauk slowed. Merewin tried to sit apart from him, but ached all over. She sighed in the silence.

  “You do feel better?” Hauk asked.

  She nodded. “Aye, better since I purged. Just tired and dirty.”

  “You wretch a lot.” She felt Hauk’s breath touch her head. Was he grinning? She almost heard it in the inflection.

  “I dinna before I met ye,” Merewin retorted. His deep chuckle rumbled as he steered the horse through the sacred woods along the path to Spring House.

  They rode slowly for some time in silence. Merewin’s mind moved from Serena to Ivarr to Svala’s anger.

  “Svala hates me,” she said to the trees. Their old trunks bent slightly inward with age as if they listened. Looking upward, Merewin watched the sway of colored leaves.

  Hauk remained silent for so long Merewin didn’t think he’d acknowledge her observation.

  “We...mated once. I was drunk and grieving, and she was mourning the loss of her husband. I don’t plan to repeat it.”

  Merewin released her breath, the pain in her chest relaxing. But why should she care? Wouldn’t it be better for her new master to find his way into other beds to ease his lust, leaving her alone? Merewin knew the answer before she had finished thinking the question. No, it wouldn’t be better. It would be awful.

  “She is jealous of you,” Hauk said, lifting one strand of Merewin’s long hair.

  “I am merely a thrall while she is the king’s sister-in-law. Oh, so much to be jealous of,” Merewin said with dripping sarcasm.

  “You are beautiful. And a warrior.”

  Beautiful? He thought her beautiful.

  “Svala is a headstrong woman, and most women back down from her anger.” Hauk pulled Merewin tighter into his lap as they leaped over a small creek. “She didn’t know that she barred the way of a warrior.”

  Merewin’s mind finally moved to the other title he’d bestowed. “Warrior? Warriors doona vomit in battle.”

  “Quite a few do actually,” he countered. “Good ones in fact.”

  Merewin shook her head. “I am a healer, not a warrior. Ye are a warrior.”

  They broke out of the forest, the view of Spring House in the valley below. “We but fight different enemies, Merewin.”

  She turned in her seat to look at his face. The sun slanted against him casting gold in the waves of his hair.

  “I fight enemies with my axe and sword, and you fight illness and injury with your...”

  “Magick,” Merewin finished before he could. “With my magick.”
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  Hauk stared at her for a moment and then shifted his gaze beyond, above her head.

  “I don’t believe in magick, Merewin.” He tapped the horse into a run down the slope.

  “Ye doona believe in magick? Were ye not just there to see me save Ivarr? I did it, me, with my magick.” Merewin yelled over the wind and thudding hoof beats as she grabbed hard to the fringe of mane.

  He pulled up short in the front of the house, scattering chickens and setting off the dog. Jumping down, he reached up.

  “A warrior doesn’t win a battle completely on his own,” Hauk said, a glint of humor to his eye.

  “But I,” Merewin stammered, “I came up with the plan, convinced Aslaug to follow it, hit Svala, and stripped the disease from that boy.”

  “And your Earth Mother?”

  Merewin looked at him blankly. She’d have to explain sometime about Serena.

  “And the other one,” Hauk said, watching.

  Merewin’s eyes widened. He had seen Drakkina? No one else had seemed to notice her at all. Had the crone let him see her?

  “So obviously,” Merewin said softly, “there was magick involved. My magick and their magick.”

  Hauk shrugged his broad shoulders. “Or an illusion. A trick of light and smoke.”

  “How would I do that?”

  Hauk untied the sack of stones from the horse and pulled his sword and axe from their straps. A boy took the reins of the horse.

  “I’ve seen many strange things in battle,” Hauk said.

  “But...”

  “I don’t believe in magick.” He turned his back on her to walk into the house.

  Merewin stomped after him. “Just because ye continue to say it, doesn’t mean ye’re right.”

  Hauk pivoted suddenly and Merewin bumped into him. He looked down at her, the humorous glint gone. “I did not say that there is no magick, Merewin.” His voice was low, commanding. “What I said was that I do not believe in it.” Challenge evident in his eyes. “I choose not to believe in it.”

  The house servant entered from a back room. Without moving his gaze from her Hauk said, “Vivien, send for a bath for Merewin and let her rest. It seems she’s in need of more sleep.”

  With that he turned and strode through the arched doorway of his own room.

  Chapter 6

  Hauk arched the huge axe in a smooth circular motion. Thwack! The log split evenly under the assault. The sun lowered behind the small mountain shading Spring House, and the chill of autumn cooled his sweating body. He placed another log on the block and used momentum and muscle to swing the axe again. Thwack! Simple. How simple the act of breaking logs was. Hauk liked simple, at least in his home life. Complexity in battle, strategy was another thing. Difficult sieges strengthened the mind as well as the body. But he was home, not circling a fort in Mercia.

  Merewin.

  Thwack!

  Definitely not simple.

  Hauk had watched Ivarr fill back up with life as he lay sprawled on top of Merewin. As if dark heaviness had been sucked out of him into Merewin to purge. Hauk wiped the back of his hand across his brow. He squinted at the sunrays as they streaked past the mountain peak. Aye, he believed in the magick of the gods, but Merewin was not a goddess.

  Oh, she looked the part with her brilliant golden green eyes that turned up slightly at the corners, her full lips and proud chin, and her seductive form, one he was almost unable to resist. And there was her cleverness. Her intelligence intrigued him, made him want to talk to her and hear what she had to say. He’d never felt that toward a female before.

  Thwack!

  Aye, Merewin looked the part and had the intellect of a goddess, but she was not an immortal of Asgard. Why then did she seem to possess the magick to heal? And who were the two women who had helped her? The crone had stood silent but watched him. The other could have been Freyja, but he swore he’d heard the apparition call Merewin “sister.”

  Hauk hadn’t yet asked Merewin further about the events of that day two weeks ago. He’d been too busy discouraging Ragnar from buying her freedom. Hauk had finally won the battle when he’d reminded Aslaug that freedom meant that Merewin would find a way to return to Northumbria. She’d be no longer available for miraculous healing.

  Although he wouldn’t admit it out loud, Hauk had also avoided Merewin to avoid another debate about magick. He’d sworn never to put faith into magickal healing again the day Toki laid dead and cold in his arms. A woman from Northumbria wouldn’t change his mind. He still didn’t trust it. But the vision of Ivarr waking in the morning sunshine on Merewin’s outstretched body haunted his convictions.

  Hauk swung the axe. “I still don’t believe in magick,” he said to the log. Thwack! It fell neatly in two.

  Aye, chopping wood was simple. A certain act, set in motion, had the same result—a split log. Now and then the log had a variance or may wobble, but Hauk’s power, his mighty axe still sliced through the knotted wood. Simple. And completely in his control.

  Thwack!

  Unfortunately nothing with Merewin seemed in his control. She was his thrall, but even now she worked in an out building she’d claimed yesterday for her own. Calling it her curing cottage. Pounding plants, straining foul colored concoctions into vials and bladders, and boiling plants and bits of this and that in an iron pot. When he’d stopped in to see her earlier, she’d been covered with sweat, her sleeves rolled up, her hair curling wildly around her trim waist. Beautiful, absolutely, tantalizingly beautiful. Until he’d smelled the air.

  Thwack!

  The aroma of healing. It twisted his gut as the memories of sickness and death washed over him. The faces of his parents and brother, his wife, and then Toki thrashed against his defenses. Memories he thought he’d crushed so hard that they’d disintegrated. And one sniff of Merewin’s cures brought it all back. He’d retreated.

  Thwack! Nay, Merewin was not simple. Mayhap it would be good to put some distance between them? Ragnar’s orders to help his alli tamp down hostilities in Dalriada sounded good. He’d deal with Merewin’s craft when he returned.

  “Papa?” Dalla’s voice cut through his thoughts. Thwack!

  “Aye, Dalla.” Thwack!

  There was silence, and he lowered his axe to look at his daughter. Her lovely little features lay dim on her face as the breeze caught at her reddish hair. Even sad, she was beautiful, and not such a little girl anymore. She would marry within five years. He remembered when she laughed often and smiled all the time. When was the last time he’d seen her smile?

  Dalla walked up to him as if waiting for permission. Hauk set the axe against the block and opened his arms. She jumped into them, clinging.

  “Now, now,” he said under the attack. “What’s this?”

  Her words were muffled against his stomach. “I missed you, Papa.”

  He looked down. “You have Vivien and Diarf to play with when I’m gone.”

  Dalla frowned. “It’s not the same,” she whispered, and Hauk knew she meant that it was not the same as when the house milled with family. Hauk was able to escape the loneliness that lay heavy on the once loud and happy house by going on raids. Dalla could not. What could he say to that? He had no answers, no solutions to fix the past. He’d rather ignore it until it was forgotten.

  “Well I’m here now,” he said gruffly, messing the top of her hair and picking up his axe. “And now you will have Merewin to talk with.”

  “I don’t want her,” Dalla spat out, giving a glimpse of the hellion. “You brought her home for me,” she said, reminding him of his foolish words upon arrival void a gift. “And I don’t want her. Send her back or give her away. I overheard from Vivien that Bjalki, Svala’s brother, wants her in his bed.”

  “Dalla, you are too young to be discussing such things,” he said and reminded himself to have a word with the house servant.

  Thwack! The axe began a rhythm again, concluding the subject.

  “Send her away, Papa,” Dalla insis
ted.

  Thwack!

  “She is staying, Dalla. Make friends. She can help you prepare yourself to be a proper wife.”

  “How can she do that? She’s not a wife, just a whore for your bed!” she screamed.

  Hauk stopped in mid swing. “Dalla Geirson, you will not say such...” but she turned and ran off, reddish hair trailing behind. Should he follow? Aye, but what would he say when he caught her?

  When she was out of sight, Hauk returned to the pile of logs. Dalla would outgrow the stubbornness. She would learn to like Merewin.

  Thwack!

  Simple. He liked simple.

  ****

  Svala shielded her eyes from the sun and watched Hauk. She sat atop her mare at the ridge above Spring House. A thick stand of trees blocked her from sight. Svala’s gaze followed the swing of his axe down on the log then trailed over muscles in his flexing shoulders. She squinted and wished she could hide closer. Hauk shook his head, sending his waving blond hair to graze against his skin.

  Svala touched her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. “He’s magnificent,” she whispered from behind the thin shawl that hid the bruising under her eyes and around her nose. She still remembered the feel of his large hands roaming her hot body the one night she had found release in his arms. She missed that power. Craved it.

  “Look at that strength.” Just watching, the moisture grew at the juncture of her legs. She licked her upper lip again, remembering the taste of the huge man.

  “I am stronger than he,” Bjalki said gruffly. His horse sidled closer to his sister’s.

  Svala absently ran her hand down his arm. “Now, now big brother. Do I detect some jealousy?” she mocked through the wrap.

  “Never.” Bjalki’s gaze searched the yard.

  Svala laughed lightly, but her chest tightened. She needed Hauk. Her marriage to Ragnar’s brother had given her a position at court. And as long as Aslaug’s children kept dying, it would be Svala’s child to rule next or even Svala’s husband if something dreadful happened to Ragnar during a raid. But now that her husband was gone, Svala felt her position slipping.

  Some whispered that the warriors would support Hauk as ruler if anything happened to Ragnar. Svala needed Hauk to ensure her position once more, to ensure that a child from her loins would rule. Hauk’s only son had died, too, and Dalla would soon be married and sent away. It was a perfect plan, if only Hauk would cooperate.