The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  She slowly hoisted herself to her feet. Blood dripped to the floor by her feet and she shook her head again to clear it. With effort, she leaned over and picked up her knives again, and spun them, feeling their weight. “Call security!” she screamed as loudly as she could, hoping it would alert someone in the hall, or that the people standing frozen with surprise and uneasiness in the middle of the rotunda would put together that the threat was coming from within the Kine and act.

  She headed for Sindri again, where she could see him standing beside the last portal on that side. When she reached the place where the invisible barrier had halted her the first time, she hesitated.

  Go forward! came the mental command. I can defeat the shield.

  Charlee stepped forward. Her skin prickled almost painfully, but she was not halted. She smiled at Sindri and headed for him, picking up speed.

  Sindri scowled and muttered something in a language she didn’t know. His hands were waving, moving faster. Moving with haste.

  But nothing stopped her.

  She gripped her knives firmly, feeling the calm of endless training sessions descend upon her, coating her thoughts and directing her movements. She knew she was the only one who could deal with Sindri and halt whatever plans he had put into action. This would be her only chance.

  She lifted her knives to the ready position as Sindri screamed at her—a spell or incantation—but the voice in her head was protecting her.

  “No!” Sindri screamed in pent-up denial as she stepped past the big pillars.

  “Charlee, to your left!” The warning this time came from behind her. It was Asher’s voice, and it was full of some emotion she had no time to analyze. But the fear in his tone was enough for her to whirl to the left, throwing her knives up so that the blades crossed.

  Øystein’s sword rammed into the vee formed by her knives and she barely—just barely—stopped the blade from burying itself into her head. Øystein looked triumphant, though. He grinned at her. “He’s too far away to help you, Amica.”

  Which was true. Charlee nodded in agreement, an odd calm filling her. She knew that this was probably the moment when she would die, but Øystein didn’t seem to understand that it didn’t matter.

  He lifted the sword, swinging it fast, bringing it around for the blow that would either decapitate her or spill her innards out upon the floor. She dropped her knives low, to block his blow, wondering if her strength would be enough.

  The three gunshots sounded very loud in the room, which had fallen almost completely silent. Øystein jerked and staggered backwards, his sword flailing. Red flowers blossomed on his jerkin. He looked in Asher’s direction, his expression puzzled.

  Charlee looked around, her breath escaping her. Asher stood fifteen yards away, almost in the center of the hall. His sword was in his belt, but there was a gun in his hand, pointing at Øystein.

  “I’m close enough for this,” Asher told him. He fired again.

  The bullet punched into Øystein’s forehead, almost dead center. His puzzled expression faded and he toppled backwards, like a felled tree.

  Sindri laughed. “It’s too late. You can’t stop it!”

  “Stop what, Sindri?” Eira asked. She had stepped out of the portal behind Asher, and now she walked across the rotunda, which had cleared of people. They had scattered from the field of fire and were now ranged around the edges, too interested in events to scurry away from danger.

  Sindri’s eyes widened as he looked at her.

  “Tell me what you have done,” Eira told him, moving slowly closer.

  Sindri pulled himself together. He straightened up and bowed low. “Mistress. You will forever have my respect and my love.”

  “Tell me,” Eira snapped. “Have you exposed us to the Alfar?”

  “Did you know I was once King Cnut’s advisor?” Sindri asked her. He spoke with a tone that made it sound like they were conversing over mead. Two friends, enjoying a moment of each other’s company. “I would sit on his white silk banner—no one had a banner so fine or so expensive. Silk was nearly unheard of then.”

  Charlee stared at him, confused. What was happening here? Why was Sindri speaking so oddly?

  Her phone buzzed like a demented mosquito against her hip, and she pulled it out and read the text message.

  Guard the ny portal

  It was from Asher. She looked over at him. He was holding the gun on Sindri, but his phone was in his left hand, down by his thigh.

  Slowly, trying not to draw attention to herself, Charlee side-stepped and shuffled until she was hidden from Sindri by one of the enormous pillars. Then she moved silently across the rotunda, using the pillars on the other side as a guide, trying to keep the pillar behind her between her and Sindri. Behind her, Sindri was still speaking. He had not noticed her movement.

  “I would sit upon his banner and scare his enemies with my flapping. Cnut listened to me. He believed me. I won for him the largest empire any king had ever aspired to, in all of Europe.” His lip curled into a sneer. “Then the stupid fool tried to renege on our deal.”

  “You killed him,” Eira said softly, as if she understood exactly what Sindri was talking about.

  “I ruined his life, first. His life and his kingdom, so that none of his heirs could claim it. Then I ate his heart and took his soul and all his knowledge.”

  “Is that the price we pay for refusing you, Sindri?” Eira asked. “You will ruin us and destroy our world, because of a lost kiss?”

  “I was never truly a part of your world.” He seemed almost sad. “I saw what you did to outsiders, to anyone not Herleifr, who got too close to you.”

  Eira withdrew her sword, slowly. “You know we cannot allow a traitor to live, don’t you?”

  Sindri spread his hands. “In my heart, I did not betray you. Never you.”

  “If we survive what you have done, I will remember that,” Eira assured him. She moved very fast. Charlee could barely follow what she did. Her whole body leaned backwards, and then swayed forwards as the great sword swung. There was a wet swishing sound that made Charlee swallow.

  Before Sindri could drop to the ground, though, he seemed to fold in on himself. His features melted, then ran like hot wax, down into the black robe, which crumpled to the ground slowly, as if all the supporting bones beneath had abruptly disappeared.

  As the robe sank to the floor, one wide sleeve lifted up into the air. The arm that had been in it seconds before was gone, but it looked like it was being raised by an invisible arm, nevertheless. Eira stepped backwards, her sword at the ready.

  The sleeve jerked and then slid backwards and a bird emerged. It was a raven, pitch black and huge, its small black eyes—so similar to Sindri’s—taking in everything around it as it cocked its head from side to side.

  Everyone still in the hall murmured and stirred uneasily. The Kine considered ravens to be very unlucky, for they were the birds that most often brought a Valkyrie to the battlefield to collect the dead.

  The bird hopped away from the black robe and then with a loud caw, flapped its wings and launched itself into the air, lifting higher and higher until it reached the narrow windows at the top of the rotunda. The bright sunlight pouring through them dazzled Charlee, and she blinked, clearing her vision. When she could refocus on the light and the windows once more, the raven was gone.

  Asher ran toward Charlee while Eira lifted her voice. “All hands! Everyone! Einherjar, answer the call! To me! To me!”

  The cry was picked up inside the hall itself, and down along the wide corridors leading off the rotunda, where the meeting halls and common rooms were. Movement sounded: running feet, calls, the unmistakeable sound of steel being drawn. The people around the edge of the rotunda moved toward the center.

  Asher reached Charlee’s side and picked up her arm. “I need you to step through to New York. Now.” He was pulling her like he expected no argument, or would consider none.

  Charlee resisted his pull. “Are you kidd
ing me? I’m staying here!”

  Einherjar and Valkyrie came running into the rotunda. All of them were armored. All carried weapons.

  “Everyone who is not of the Kine, leave now—use the New York portal!” Eira cried. “Amica—evacuate the wounded. Hurry! The Alfar will be here in moments.”

  Charlee looked at Asher. “I want to stay and fight,” she told him.

  “This isn’t your fight.” He wasn’t even looking at her.

  Charlee lifted her knife and prodded it in his side, just enough to get his attention. Asher turned back to her, surprise skittering across his face.

  “Of course this is my bloody fight!” she told him. “It’s my world they’re trying to destroy—or take, or whatever it is they think they’re doing! Do not send me through that portal, Asher. I’ll die holding my ground before I’ll meekly let you and the Kine protect me and mine.”

  Watch out! The cry came in her head, loud and urgent.

  Charlee whirled. They were three feet away from the portals on the west side of the rotunda. The portal right next to the New York one shimmered slightly, the only warning that someone was stepping through from the other side.

  Then the Alfar leapt out into the rotunda, from portals on both sides of the room. Charlee heard their battle cries, but she was too busy getting her knives up into a defensive posture, and holding off the first wild charge of Blakar as they poured through all but three of the portals on this side. The New York portal, closest to the main hall doors, was still. Abruptly, she was fighting. Actually fighting. She had no time to fear or worry.

  Nine portals were vomiting their alarming cargo out onto the rotunda floor and abruptly, the circular hall was filled with fighting bodies—the human-looking Kine, the brown-skinned Blakar and the lighter flesh of the Myrakar. There were no Lajos or Nare here—the Lajos were the commanding race, and wouldn’t appear while their cannon fodder did the work.

  “Charlee!” Asher looked over his shoulder, even as he thrust his sword into the stomach of a Blakar. “Evacuate the hall. Get them out. Portals, doors. We’ll hold them as long as we can.”

  She whirled and ran for the main hall, to do as he said. The next fifty minutes were a nightmare filled with panic as Charlee ordered, begged, cajoled and sometimes pushed people through the New York portal. For each human, she found a Valkyrie or Einherjar to escort them. For the wounded, she found stretchers or Kine carriers. For many of the humans in the hall, she simply sent them around the fighting and into the extensive workways and passages that connected the public rooms with each other, so that the Amica and other staff could service them. Charlee appointed Amica to guide the humans through the workways to the only access to the outside world. She told the humans to find shelter anywhere they could once they were outside the hall, but to keep moving as far as possible. Remember London! she urged them, and the fright on their faces assured her that they understood the danger that was being barely held at bay in the rotunda.

  On one of her trips through the hall doors, to lead more walking wounded through the New York portal, Charlee saw that there were many more Einherjar fighting to hold back the Alfar, now. She spotted the tall, spare figure of Stefan, deep in the middle of the roiling battle.

  Asher and his men were still holding open the New York gate, forming an almost solid wall shielding the portal, and dealing with any Alfar who came through the next portal or tried to demolish their line.

  “This won’t last much longer!” he called to her sometime later. He was bloody, and there was a cut across his shield arm, oozing more blood. But he was standing and showed no signs of weakness.

  Charlee held up a finger. “One more group. The rest I’ll send through the tunnels.”

  “Make it fast!” he warned and stepped forward to clash with a Myrakar who had launched himself from several feet away with an inhuman, ululating cry.

  Charlee hurried. The last group she wanted to push through the portal were too weak, too injured, to face Oslo in the depth of winter. She found them halfway to the doors, already heading in her direction, and urged them to hurry, hurry.

  She saw Gan-shu, a fellow Amica, across the hall. “Gan-shu! Take everyone out through the workways. The hall is about to be overrun!”

  Gan-shu glanced at her, her eyes huge. But she nodded and instantly began to round people up, pushing them toward the service doors.

  The injured that Charlee was shepherding along began to shuffle and limp along even faster, encouraged by her call to Gan-shu. She pushed open the big door to get them through. There were five of them, all Einherjar, so they could step through the portals without companions. She guided them along the narrow path to the portal that Asher and his men were holding open, and waved them through.

  Behind her, more Einherjar assembled, ready to step through. These men were fit, but breathing hard, their swords and blades bloodied and covered in gore. The fighters were falling back, they were all falling back, to retreat through the one portal they held.

  One of the Alfar cries went up, triumphant in its volume and glee. Charlee looked up, just in time to see Stefan standing among a tight circle of them. He was clutching his stomach. As Charlee looked up, one of the Myrakar whirled his blade in a wide arc, slashing viciously.

  Charlee bit back her cry of protest as blood spilled from Stefan’s throat. He fell among them and disappeared.

  “Einherjar! To me! To me!” Eira cried, her voice strong enough to be heard across the hall. It was the voice of a commander, a leader. She was moving across the hall, fighting her way to the portal. She was among the last of them.

  “Charlee, go through,” Asher snapped.

  “Not until you do,” she cried back.

  He swore, and turned back to fight off the overwhelming waves of Alfar. Charlee stood at the very brink of the portal, her knives up, watching the Einherjar retreat. It was a bloody few minutes’ work, as they battled to hold the portal and push everyone through.

  Eira drew level with Charlee and looked over her shoulder. She was almost breathless and sweat gleamed on her arms and her face. She glanced at Asher. “Retreat, Stallari!”

  He nodded without looking around. Eira jumped through the portal and his men shuffled around, forming an arc to protect the portal, as one by one they leapt. Charlee realized with a start that as their numbers diminished, the more dangerous it became. But Asher had clearly thought of that ahead of time, for when four of them were left, standing shoulder to shoulder, their swords whirling, he yelled: “Now!”

  All four of them turned at once and jumped for the portal. Asher wrapped his arm around Charlee’s waist and she was yanked through with him.

  The Second Hall had fallen.

  * * * * *

  They fell into a rolling sprawl across the tiled floor, unable to keep their feet. Charlee felt skin scrape and joints jar, but let herself roll as Howard had taught her.

  As she came to a stop, face down on the floor, she heard Roar’s voice, a bellow of command. “Blow it!”

  Asher threw himself on top of her, and she turned her face away from the portal as a great explosion rent the room behind them. A hot wave of air pushed against them, then debris: pieces of brick, mortar and splinters of timbers.

  Asher was up on his feet, pulling her up onto hers, before the debris settled. “Fast, fast, faster,” he told her. “Hurry. Onto the street and as far as we can get.” His fingers were gripping her elbow again, but this time she didn’t mind. Her hearing was fuzzy and her mind was having trouble making connections, but she did understand his urgency. She let him drag her into a run, following the many Kine who were sprinting from the main hall, down the wooden stairs and out into the foyer. They were a fast-moving stream.

  “How long?” Asher called out ahead of him.

  “Three minutes!” Roar called back, although Charlee could not see him over the heads and shoulders of those who were just ahead of them.

  They took the emergency exits, running and often stumbling down the
iron stairs, gripping the bannisters to keep their balance. Time beat at them, the seconds ticking down.

  Then they burst out onto the street and Charlee blew out what was left of her breath in relief.

  “Keep running!” Asher urged.

  They ran across the street, dodging cars. Eira and Roar and many others were calling out warnings to New Yorkers who were on the sidewalks and they turned and ran with them, trying to get as far away from the Pearl Street building as possible.

  Then it blew. There was a deep rumbling sound. Charlee had to fight her need to look back, but instead keep running. Then the rumble was overtaken by one of the loudest noises Charlee had ever heard. It made her clap her hands to her ears. She was aware that she was screaming her fright and panic, but she couldn’t hear herself because the explosion was swallowing everything.

  Then the blast wave reached them and Charlee was knocked off her feet. She rolled and kept rolling until she was halted by something soft. She looked up, briefly, and saw black rubber and a name outlined over it. Pirelli.

  Saved by a low profile… she thought disjointedly, as blackness took her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Eira stretched as she walked over to the dining table, then unbuckled her sword belt and dropped the weapon on the table. In the two hours it had taken them to deal with human authorities and make their way through the panicky lower Manhattan streets to Asher’s apartment, the blood on her sword had dried to a scaly, dark film and was flaking away.

  Roar eased into the easy chair over by the window.

  Asher dropped his key onto the plate next to the door. “There’s a shower through there,” he told them, indicating the bedroom. “I’ll order a pizza.”

  “Dibs on the shower,” Eira said, her hands on the small of her back. “Do you have a shirt I can use, Asher?”