The Black Witch (Isolde Saga Book 1)

by Robert Jones

  Isolde's heart leapt in hope at the sight of her old guardian. The giant dropped her lead and lunged forward with his axe. The blow sailed overhead and Wulfric stepped aside with the ease of a man who had faced death a thousand times. There was no contest. Wulfric hurled his axe up with all his might. The heavy steel ravaged the giant's belly ripping it open. The sound of hacked flesh was awful and the giant crashed forward into the cobbled path. Wulfric never broke his stride. He took one look at Isolde and grimaced, ripped her up onto his shoulder and marched onward.

  Wulfric didn't take her far and dropped her down just out of sight of the bodies. They sat on a slope by the road and he untied her binds.

  "You're a stupid little girl," he spat as he released her. His voice was harsh like gravel and he said it with conviction. "Running around out here alone is a death wish. As stupid as your mother."

  "What would you know?" she said, flexing her free hands, "look how far I have come and I'm fine!"

  "Fine?" he laughed sardonically, "yeah, you're alive because of me."

  "I could have handled them," she said.

  "Yeah, you were doing fine. Just like you handled those wolves right?"

  She raised an eyebrow, "how do you know about the wolves?"

  "You think you know it all don't you, Little Bird. I've been tracking you for two days now. Thank the gods you move so slow and leave so many breadcrumbs behind. I bet you hardly have the strength left to go on."

  "So, what? Father sent you to babysit me?"

  Wulfric laughed at her again baring his mouth of jagged peaks.

  "Gods no," he said, "Harald was supposed to do that. Where is that coward anyway? Back home no doubt. And where's that tramp Skaldi?"

  The memory of the battle flooded back to Isolde and Wulfric could see the pain on her face.

  "So they found you, huh?"

  She nodded slowly. She explained what had happened, the winds, the wolves, the raiders and the blonde haired youth and his two friends. Harald's ferocity and Skaldi. Wulfric sat silently and hung on her every word.

  "So the boy became a man in the end," he said as she finished the tale.

  They sat for a moment in silence, Isolde rubbing her neck where the coarse rope had held her.

  "We need to find them," he said, "The boy may yet live."

  CHAPTER XII

  Isolde and Wulfric headed east along the ancient road of cobbled stones. The morning sun broke the rim of the eastern mountains, crowning the peaks in a golden lining. It was easy travelling compared to the rigours of the wooded wild that sprawled out on either side of them. The rain was light but the valley gave them shelter from the wind blowing above them.

  "Why are you so determined to kill yourself, Little Bird?" Wulfric asked.

  The pair were an odd couple on the road. Wulfric stood an easy two heads above her and must have been twice as broad. But he hung his head low between rounded shoulders whereas Isolde walked tall and kept her head high.

  "I don't want to die," she said with a sure voice, "I just don't want to live having done nothing. That seems like a kind of death to me."

  "You're young," he said, "you have a whole life ahead of you. No need to swing a sword as soon as your big enough to hold it."

  "My mother was younger than me when she went to war."

  "So that's what it's all about then?"

  "Everyone says I am just like her but I don't see it," Isolde sighed, "she sounded so brave."

  "If you don't want to live in her shadow, Little Bird, maybe you should step to the side and let the sun shine on you in a different way."

  "I don't get it," Isolde frowned.

  Wulfric cleared his throat, "it's like this, Isolde. You are obviously trying to prove that you are her equal, or maybe even better than her. But everything she did led to her death."

  "She didn't die being a hero," she cut in bluntly.

  "She died doing the greatest act of heroism I have ever seen," Wulfric's eyes were glaring.

  "She died giving me life. What the hell is so heroic about that? I may as well be a murderer," she snapped.

  Wulfric stopped walking, grabbed her shoulder firmly and spun her around to face him. Isolde could see the sternness in his eyes as he pierced her gaze.

  "You know what, Isolde, I've watched you all your life playing the damned victim. We all have shit in our past. Everyone. You didn't kill your mother so get over it."

  Isolde slapped him across the cheek but Wulfric didn't flinch. He didn't even break his icy gaze. His eyes were locked onto her's.

  "Picking fights again?" he asked.

  "What the hell would you know about losing a mother you've never even known?"

  "Plenty," he said breaking contact with her eyes for a moment, "we've all lost people we love. My son. Unborn. My woman... it will kill you if you let it, Isolde."

  She thought she caught a tear at the corner of his stony face before he turned away. Isolde felt wretched, for all the years she had known Wulfric she had never known the man had been married.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I didn't know."

  "Why would you?" he said turning back around to her, "you're a hard-headed idiot, Little Bird. You are just like your mother."

  A bird cawed in the distance. Mother... Caaw... Mother, Mother...

  Isolde's eyes snapped up into the line of trees skirting the ridges above them.

  "Ravens..." she whispered, "look..."

  The trees were full of them, hundreds upon hundreds of black shadows as still as stone, watching their every move with beady red eyes.

  Mother... Mother... Caaw... Another joined the first.

  "They're watching us," Wulfric grumbled under his breath.

  The trees slowly came alive as more ravens joined the chorus. Mother... Mother... Mother... More and more joined the chant filling the valley with chaotic squawks and calls. MOTHER... MOTHER... MOTHER... MOTHER... CAAAAWW...

  "Run, Isolde!" Wulfric roared as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along the road.

  Her feet pounded the cobblestones. Mother... Mother... Mother... The word was everywhere.

  "Run! Run!" Wulfric bellowed.

  She could feel their eyes. They burned into her back. Somethings coming... her mind reeled. A cold wind. Soft like dead fingers brushed against her neck. It blew past her and the ice wind hissed through her ears. Isssooolllddeee. She wanted to roll up and cry.

  "Come on!" Wulfric cried dragging her on, "I heard it, Little Bird. Come on now!"

  They twisted out of the valley and nothing else came with the wind. The caws and calls of the ravens faded away, but they didn't stop running. Neither wanted to rest. They ran and ran until they found the others.

  ***

  "He's lost an eye, but he's alive!" Skaldi called as he ran to meet Isolde and Wulfric.

  The old man had never looked so fail in Isolde's eyes. His eyes carried the worries of the world. It made her forget how broken her own body felt. She hadn't noticed the blonde and his two friends sitting by the fire. Watching them with curious eyes.

  "Where is he?" Wulfric said with a hoarse voice.

  Skaldi took them over to a small tent he had erected.

  "It's not much," he said, "but it keeps him out of this rain."

  Isolde peered in and gasped, holding her hands to her mouth.

  "Harald..." she cried.

  "My god..." Wulfric pulled the flaps of the entrance open, "a man at last I suppose. How bad is it, Skaldi?"

  Harald lay on a makeshift bed of blankets and leaves unconscious. His face was as white as ice. A bandage wrapped around the right side of his head was soaked in blackened blood. The one eye they could see was a deep purple and his lips were cracked and dry.

  "The axe cut deep," Skaldi said mournfully, "but he was lucky, it must have glanced off the bone. I stitched it and young Erik helped me find some herbs, but he must get home soon."

  Wulfric nodded, "Come outside, Isolde." He said.

  She shook her head an
d knelt down beside Harald, brushing his sticky hair away from his face, it was slick with blood.

  "Consequences, Little Bird," growled Wulfric, "actions and consequences..."

  Isolde remained with the dying Harald. Her heart had found her throat and the tears flowed in uncontrollable bursts. She lay down next to him and kissed his forehead. What have I done, she thought to herself. She lay with him all night, whispering into his ear, praying for the gods to grant him mercy.

  She didn't remember sleeping, she thought maybe it was a bad dream. But Harald's blood soaked bandage reminded her of reality. He still had not stirred.

  She crawled out of the tent to find dawn breaking. It had rained all night and the heavy morning dew had soaked the ground. Skaldi had his back to her, he was hunched over, sitting on a rock and staring into the dead fire. Wulfric could be heard snoring behind the tent, his bear skin coat pulled up over him so he looked like a hibernating giant. She walked to Skaldi slowly and embraced him softly burying her head into his shoulder.

  "I am sorry, Isolde," he said clasping onto his wooden pipe.

  "What for?" she asked.

  "I promised that I would keep you protected. That you would both be fine. I failed you."

  "Will he live?" she asked.

  "He will, but he needs time to heal. He lost a lot of blood but he is strong, and he is lucky."

  He turned his head to Isolde and motioned for her to sit with him.

  "It is over now, Isolde."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean it is over. You've slept two whole days, and Wulfric and I have spoken at length in that time. He told me about the ravens and the whisper. She is calling for you... the Black Witch is regaining her strength. I can feel it."

  "Then we need to finish her once and for all!" she exclaimed.

  "It is too dangerous, Isolde. We are too few. She whispers your name." His eyes glanced left and right into the woods, "she is calling you. Don't you understand? The ravens, they taunted the name of your mother. You must take Harald home and go into hiding."

  Isolde's head was full of questions, "I don't understand."

  "There are secrets, Isolde. Dark deeds long held in silence." Skaldi drew on his pipe slowly, "too long perhaps. When your mother and father drove Orlog into the wastes all those years ago, it came at a price... a curse..."

  "Curse?" she stammered with wide eyes.

  "Your mother broke the witch's power. But Orlog did not go gently into the night. She is not human, Isolde. Not anymore. I do not know what happened. That fiend disappeared and before long dark whispers came to me from the wastes. A power had been born there. I paid the rumours no thought until the day of your birth." He cast his eyes down, "I cannot utter the things she said in her last hours. You were brought into the world with love, Isolde, but your mother paid through pain."

  "Was it Orlog?" she whispered.

  "I couldn't be sure. I searched the wastes looking for signs but found none. Your father and I took you as an infant to the druids of Heroth Nuir. The seer showed me things I thought impossible. Evil I can find no words to describe. But it was clear that the Black Witch had struck your mother down with some silent malice. Orlog cursed your mother to the grave."

  Anger seethed under Isolde's skin, through gritted teeth she said, "then I must avenge her."

  "Only if you wish to sacrifice Harald in doing so," Skaldi sighed, "he needs you now more than ever."

  She threw her face into her hands, "what do I do?"

  "You go home, Isolde. You take Harald and you wait for me."

  "You're not coming with us?" she asked.

  "I am sorry, Isolde. I would not leave unless I had too."

  "Why?"

  Skaldi sighed, his shoulders were slumped forward, Isolde thought he looked broken.

  "I did not know that Hrothgar's barbarity had come so far," he said, "if what Erik has told me is true then I may be too late already. I must make for Ravenscar at once."

  The words seemed to fall out of Skaldi's mouth with heaviness like he resented the fact that he had said them at all. But Isolde's mind burned with the memories of her forced march and the small raider's rotten teeth. She shuddered.

  "I want to kill them," she said.

  "You cannot think that way, Isolde," Skaldi said calmly, "war may very well be on our doorstep and you will rue the day you thought there was glory in death."

  Isolde sighed and Skaldi went on, "Orlog's return seems to be part of a bigger picture. Hrothgar has eyes for the south. His men are on the move. The gods are angry, the spirits are alive again. The world may return to darkness unless we do something."

  Skaldi got up and walked away as Isolde buried her hands into her face with frustration. Her mind fought with the ideas of going on for glory and keeping Harald alive. I knew he would be a curse, she felt guilt well up as soon as she thought it.

  "Maybe there is another way," said a voice.

  Isolde looked up, it was the blonde youth, Erik, finding his way to his feet. He looked deep into her eyes with a smile that sent goose-pimples across her skin.

  CHAPTER XIII

  The group stayed in the camp for two more nights before Harald stirred. Skaldi was still with them, but Wulfric had taken off as soon as he woke. Isolde had spent the time fretting about Harald's welfare while spending time alone with Erik. She couldn't keep herself away from him, he was as tall as Harald but a little thinner, wiry she thought, and better on his feet too. His shaggy blonde hair fell down past his shoulders and was kept back by a thin leather band. His smile was perfect, and his slate grey eyes brightened when he looked at her. It sent her heart into a flurry. Erik's face was youthful but held a thin stubble barely visible against his swarthy skin. But she was wary of his two companions, Sven and Bjorn. They were twins and could hardly be torn apart. Tall and thin, long black hair and dark eyes that jittered from place to place in an ever watchful alertness. They whispered to each other in the northern tongue and always fell silent when she walked by. But Erik vouched for them.

  "They're good guys, Isolde," he would say with that smile, "farmers fleeing from the north. They just want to live like everyone else."

  But Isolde didn't trust them, she preferred the company of Erik anyway.

  He came to her in the middle of the night. She woke to the gentle rocking of his hand on her shoulder.

  "You have to come see this," he whispered with glowing eyes and a smile that stretched his soft lips. It made her feel happy.

  She climbed out of her tent and Erik led her by the hand into the woods nearby. His grip was firm and his hands warm in the chill night air.

  "Where are you taking me?" she asked under her breath.

  "You have to see, it is so beautiful."

  He guided her down a little ravine where a stream flowed freely out the rocky entrance of a dark stone hollow. It trickled down into a deep pool ringed with lush ferns and white lilies in full bloom. Erik held her close from behind as she stood in awe. The full moon was bloody tonight, its reflection being shattered into a million shards from the rippling pool.

  "I was alone here thinking about everything," he said, pulling her closer into his body, "and the moon's beauty reminded me of you."

  "Is that so?" she giggled coyly, but inside her heart raced in excitement.

  "It is," he hummed pulling her tighter still, but she wriggled free and took his hands so that she could see his eyes.

  "And what was it that you were thinking?"

  His smile was infectious, she couldn't help but smile back.

  Erik sighed, "I don't want to ruin this moment."

  This time the smile was hers, "you can't ruin it, Erik. Tell me, please?"

  He let her hands go and rubbed his face, maybe she had gone too far.

  "I know how we can go on."

  Isolde gasped in hope, "how?"

  "By leaving Harald behind and finding Orlog on our own," he sighed again.

  Isolde's heart sunk, "I can't."


  "I know you can't," he said, "it's why I didn't want to say anything. And now you probably think I'm heartless. It's just, I know Bjorn and Sven, they need to see your father anyway. They could get him home in a few days, he would recover, and we could find this witch and kill her."

  Isolde couldn't find the words for a reply. Her heart wanted to say yes, she didn't want to go home and why should Harald's weaknesses stop her. But her mind flooded with guilt at the thought, she owed her life to him.

  "Look," Erik said changing the subject. He was pointing down at a little green frog swimming across the blood moon's reflection in the water.

  "That's cute," she smiled before pointing out another. It wriggled its way out of the rocky hole and plopped itself into the pond with a splash.

  "Another!" Erik said amazed as a third came through.

  The pair watched as a fourth and fifth wriggled free of the earth before a sixth and seventh. The water stopped trickling and frog after frog fought at the mouth of the rocks to leap into the pool below. They congested and ripped at each other for freedom. Frogs flowed out filling the pool in a seething mass of movement.

  Isolde's heart raced, "this isn't right."

  "Look!" Erik nearly screamed, his finger pointing up at the ridge above.

  Deep red eyes bore down at them like mirrors of the blood moon. A figure shrouded in shadows between the trees.

  "It's her!" Isolde shrieked.

  The pair dashed over the pool and scrambled up the slope but the shadow had vanished into thin air like smoke. All that remained was the horned skull of a ram spinning freely in the air. It had been tied to a branch high above. The eye sockets blackened by fire and the sigil of three crescent moons, horns outward, had been deeply cut into the bony forehead.

  Isolde wheeled around and screamed into the night, "Fight me you hag!"