It paced within, shoulders drawn, teeth gnashing, spirit burning like fire to be free. If he were to let go and allow the beast to overtake him, what vengeance he might claim over any who might dare to stand in his way. It made him restless, sleepless, bitter and… afraid.
Every time he trembled, Frigga tightened her grip on him, as if she sought even in sleep to comfort and assuage his fears. Without her beside him, he would not have come so far. He would have turned back, run screaming for the southern mountains, even as he knew he’d never make it. Sometimes the only thing that kept him moving forward beyond the encouragement he felt flowing from his mate was the gnawing sensation in his gut reassuring him Rue was still out there.
He dozed, gentle hands drawing him from consciousness. He tried to fight it, jerking awake each time Frigga’s breath changed or the smoke-tinged wind shifted and rustled the flap of their tent. Whenever he jolted awake with a start, she reached for him in the darkness and drew him back into her arms. She held him until the slow, relaxing sound of her breath calmed his racing heart and led him back down the dark path of nightmare dreams.
The wolf chased through those dreams, a stream of fire at his back and unending darkness on the path before him. Billowing smoke filled his lungs with every rasping breath. His thoughts frantic as the pace of his heart, he barreled onward, searching, always searching with no end to the darkness in sight.
Somewhere through the haze another answered—a rich, steady howl that made the muscles of his stomach tighten and clench.
Vilnjar shot from the dream like a bolt leaving a crossbow, Frigga’s hand slipping from his tunic before she had time to tighten her fingers. He attuned his hearing until he picked up the distinct sound of rustling in the scorched grass beyond their tent. She started to reach for him, her emotions suspended between hope and fear. He gripped and squeezed her fingers in warning, lowering both of their hands over her mouth to keep her from speaking.
Lifting his face, he tried to sniff through the heavy scent of smoke, but it dulled his senses and whatever came their way spent much time among the soot and ash. Its scent heavily disguised, Frigga’s hope spread through him. Still holding his hand over her mouth, he loosened his fingers and began to withdraw, half-leaning upright and still listening as he disentangled himself from the blanket they shared and sprung silently to his feet.
He heard her stir behind him. He reached his hand back again and relied on their shared bond to tell her to stay still while he listened. She heard it too. An almost playful yip echoed through the silent night, followed by a low, guttural growl that broke into a hoarse, chastising howl.
Footsteps padded and crunched through the charred grass, growing closer and closer. Frigga’s fear nearly froze him, but it subsided as quickly as it rose.
He knew that howl. Was he still dreaming?
The beast was already restless and enraged, and the low, throaty keen prompted it to action. He sprang forward, changing as he moved and bursting through the rustling tent flap to spring on all fours in the direction it came from. He felt her thoughts, familiar but tentative as his own. She knew it was him, but she was afraid. Afraid it was some trap or trick designed to lure her in.
Charging toward the looming shades on the crest of the hill, five wolves stood proud against the night. The hopelessness that gripped him as he’d watched his homelands burn faltered.
Ruwena?
Had she found him? Had she known he was coming?
He watched as the wolf in the center cocked her head in a familiar gesture, and then without warning she began to sprint toward him, the pads of her feet thundering across the earth until she was just feet away, then the black wolf leaped at him, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground as she dragged her cold, excited tongue across his face like an overzealous pup.
They rolled in a playful dance, yipping and whining as their thoughts mingled. Her mind was a wild, scattered place filled with relief, terror and confusion. Images of her running through smoke and fire flashed through him, paining him as he suffered through the memory of her trials in the north. Then she was elated, angry with him all over again, but relieved he’d come back for her.
Frigga stood several feet away from them, laughing and crying with joy as four wolves who’d followed Ruwena through the night sauntered almost cautiously toward their reunion. He knew them all by scent, and had since they were pups.
Beyorn Hammer-Fist, Luken Thunder-Heart, Melitta One-Eye and Kellen the Wary.
Hunters who’d roamed with Rue since she was just a girl, the five of them grew up together and somehow they all survived the burning of the Edgelands.
For the first time in a week, Vilnjar felt at peace, despite all the horrors he’d seen, and as his sister rolled off him, and lay in the ashen grass, exposing her side and belly to him in submissive apology over all the harsh things she’d said and the awful thoughts she had about him while they were apart.
Because he’d come back for her, and she was ashamed of herself for believing he didn’t love her enough to do that
The fire between them was an ironic, but welcomed blaze of warmth against the frigid, late autumn night, and when Knut the Unyielding, another survivor who’d helped Ruwena escape the dungeons, passed bowls of steaming gruel to Viln and Frigga, they accepted the food graciously. It was little more than a pasty mush of boiled barley in salted water, but it was the first substantial thing they’d put into their bellies in almost two days. Both he and Frigga silently agreed it was the most wonderful thing they’d ever eaten in their lives.
Ruwena sat across from him, firelight illuminating the sharp features of her face and making her pale blue eyes shine fiercely.
They led them back to camp, where she’d transformed and embraced him again as a woman, but in human form there was a hardness about her that spoke volumes of the suffering and sorrow the six of them saw since their homeland was devastated by the cruel fires of the tyrant king.
“We were preparing to head northeast and planned to set out for the coast tomorrow in hopes we might find a boat to carry us away from this place,” Ruwena told them, her gaze lingering on Frigga with unspoken appreciation, but she kept her thoughts to herself in regards to her brother’s mate, at least for the moment.
“Why northeast?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I’ve felt the strongest pull on my soul, drawing me in that direction since I escaped the dungeons. It was driving me mad,” she noted, a distant sigh escaping her as she leveled her stare at him. “That and all the anger you left me with. It was a small wonder I managed to escape at all, but thanks to Knut and Melitta, I got out of that dungeon before they lit the fires.”
He watched Knut lean into his younger sister, Melitta, affectionately, and the girl lowered her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes. “We could barely stomach the sound of her howling,” Knut teased. “All night long, it was all anyone in the village could hear. Someone had to put a stop to the dreadful racket.”
He watched as his sister shot across the short space between them and pummeled her fist into the warrior’s arm. “He only saved me because he thought I’d lay with him.”
It always made him uncomfortable to think of his little sister as a sexual being, especially with a warrior like Knut, who Vilnjar knew for a fact bedded half the young women in the village to try and keep up with Finn’s insatiable appetites.
“Regardless of his reasons, I’m glad he did. Thank you for saving my sister, Knut,” Vilnjar said, turning his gaze around to make eye-contact with everyone seated there. “I owe you all a debt of gratitude.”
“You owe us nothing,” Beyorn said stiffly. “Ruwena would have saved herself from that prison even if Knut hadn’t set the wheels in motion. I’ve never met anyone more determined to spit in the face of death than your sister.”
“Except, perhaps, your idiot brother,” Melitta laughed.
At the mention of Finn, some of the light went out of Ruwena’s eyes, thoug
h she did turn a lopsided grin to her pack mate. “A fat lot of good it did us all to get me out of the dungeons.” The grin faded, a guilty scowl twisting her lips as she drew her knees up under her chin and hugged them close to her body. “We were useless in saving our people. The fire came when we were in the northern hills above Drekne and by the time the smoke blotted out the light of all three moons that night it was too late.”
They had to pass through the western edge of Drekne to reach their camp, and Vilnjar was all too grateful for the darkness so he didn’t have to see it. The memories his sister harbored were almost more than he could bear. Beyond Beyorn’s shoulder, their village should have lingered. It was little more than a flattened expanse of drifting ash. His awareness brought heartache to his sister. Her frustration and woe, the helplessness she’d felt standing on the hills watching all those people die… it brought him so much pain.
“There was nothing you could do,” he lamented.
“I could have cracked Finn upside the head and knocked some sense into that addled brain of his,” she hissed. “He never should have brought that girl here. This is her doing.”
“The Tyrant King’s men would have come regardless. They were only waiting for a reason,” Frigga said from behind the hollow curve of her bowl, and then lowered it to meet Ruwena’s sharp, narrowed gaze. “All of this has been written…”
“Written? Because of some seer’s insane ramblings?” She spat superstitiously away from the fire. “I’ve about had it up to my neck with these so-called seers and their nonsense. If Rhiorna was really gifted with the sight, she saw this coming a mile off and she did nothing to warn her own people before surrendering to Llorveth.” She spat again, as if the very name of their god left a bad taste in her mouth.
Vilnjar shifted uncomfortably where he sat and lowered his eyes to the fire. “Follow her beyond the land’s edge, or you will fall and I will not hold out my hand to lift you up again.” He was surprised how easily those words escaped him, words he hadn’t wanted to believe when he heard them spoken. He’d seen too much in the days that followed the speaking of them. “She warned us all, Rue, and Cobin ignored her. Everyone ignored her warnings, and now it’s too late.”
“Don’t tell me you’re buying her line of crap now, Viln,” his sister shook her head. “You of all people…”
“I’ve seen many things in the days since she spoke those words, Sister, too many things I can never unsee. She was right about the lands to the south. All that remains of our people waits there, miles beyond the mountains in a mage-sustained city called Dunvarak. I have been there. Logren Bone-Breaker showed us the way.”
Ruwena almost gave way to her disbelief upon hearing the name of their childhood friend, and then she squinted and shook her head, regarding Frigga again with unspoken contempt. “People like her,” she gestured her head toward the other woman, then turned to her brother again. “Like the curse Finn brought into our village with the fires of destruction hot on her heels?”
“Half-breeds.” It was the first time Luken spoke since they came to the small camp, the distaste in his words more than evident. “The bastard children of our dead fathers, trapped wolves unable to wake inside them.” His feet scraped through the dirt beneath them as he stood. “No,” he shook his head, glaring down at Frigga in such a way Vilnjar felt a rage inside himself unlike any he’d ever known before. “They are not our people, these half-breeds. They are less than nothing.”
“They are all that remains!” Vilnjar rose to the challenge, slamming down his empty bowl and scrambling to his feet. He threw his chest out in anger, and when he felt Frigga’s calming hand on his leg it was difficult to ignore her subtle, unspoken wish for him to relax. “For years we’ve watched what remained of the U’lfer dwindle. None who shared the mate-bond, so few children born among us it was only a matter of time before we all died of old age and these lands returned to the man who granted them to us as blood-price for the lives of our fathers. Their blood may not be as pure as ours, but they are all that is left of us.”
“Even now the Light of Madra travels to reclaim the Horns of Llorveth,” Frigga said, “and when she has them in her hands, our wolf spirits will wake and we will be no different than you.” Her voice was powerful, filled with such conviction it gave Vilnjar chills.
Disquiet moves among all those sitting around then fire. Even Luken stopped, and though he hadn’t turned back to face them, he was listening.
“We are family,” she went on after a long silence. “Brothers and sisters. Whether you wish to believe that or not, it’s true. Born of the same seed, Llorveth gave life to us all, and now we are all that is left of his children.”
“The Light of Madra?” his sister snorted, a derisive laugh caught in her tight throat. “Is that what they call her? The little girl who fled death and brought this darkness on us all when the council exiled her?”
“She is Finn’s mate,” Vilnjar said quietly.
He could feel Ruwena’s eyes on him, her incredulous stare boring into him from across the leaping flames of their fire. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I felt the same when first I heard it, but now…”
“Now you believe it?” She hissed disbelief and shook her head, the flowing waves of her black hair jostling as he took a step back. “She hardly seems worthy of him, much less the stuff legends are made from.”
“You barely even spoke to her.”
“I didn’t have to speak to her. I could tell just from looking at her she wasn’t much to get excited about. Finn was only drawn to her because she was half-naked when he found her. It’s never taken much to get him excited…”
“I think it goes much deeper than that.”
It felt odd defending Lorelei, whom he’d silently blamed for the wasteland around them more than once since they’d entered that place. He felt strangely protective of her and it didn’t help having Frigga’s ire spurring his irritation.
The Light of Madra was revered by the people of Dunvarak, their promised savior, and if the seers could be believed, that half-naked girl their brother saved would somehow save them all.
It seemed to suddenly occur to her Finn was not with him, and brow furrowing she tried to play off her instant worry over his whereabouts. “Speaking of the village idiot, where is our brother?”
Viln looked down at his hands, which he clasped together in front of him. He hid for a moment behind the greasy lock of dark brown hair that had fallen into his face. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” She scrambled to her feet and nearly jumped across the fire, both of her open palms slamming into his chest to knock him backward. “What do you mean you don’t know? You left me here, saying you needed to watch after him, and now you don’t even know where he is? What did you do, lose him? And how? He’s practically a giant and he’s never been all that good at sneaking away in the dark.”
“I did not lose him,” he corrected her, adding, “I simply could not follow where he went.” He didn’t raise his voice, but remained as calm as he could, even with her closed fists pummeling into the muscles of his chest.
It hurt, not in a physical way, but emotionally, as he realized though he worried about Finn, beneath the surface of it all he feared he’d never see his brother again, there was nothing he could do. His hands were tied to preventing Finn from embracing his destiny.
Every eye around the fire was staring at the two of them, and from the corner of his gaze he saw Knut starting to rise to come to her aid, but then Ruwena unclenched her fists, which gripped the dirty cloth of his tunic. She’d pulled a few of the hairs from his chest before letting go. Unintentional, he guessed, but the twinges of pain satisfied her to some extent.
“I am not a part of his journey, so I had to stay behind. I don’t think he’d have let me follow, even if I’d tried.”
“Journey? What journey?”
“The one Frigga spoke of.” He took a step back from her, both of her rais
ed fists hanging in the air as if she meant to strike him again, but she didn’t. “They travel northeast,” he said, watching her eyes widen with intrigue. “Lorelei, Finn and a mage from Dunvarak. They are going to take back the Horns of Llorveth, which are allegedly hidden away in the ruins of the mountain called Great Sorrow. They believe reclaiming them will wake the wolf-spirits of our half-brothers and sisters.”
Ruwena’s hands slowly lowered to her sides, but her wild blue eyes were still wide with untold rage. She was so angry she verged on transformation, the wolf stretching and flexing beneath her skin in preparation. He imagined the six of them spent more time in their wolf skins than not since fleeing Drekne; it was probably the only way they’d managed to survive.
She took a step back, lowering her head as she muttered, “That is why I’ve felt drawn in that direction.”
“Perhaps,” Viln shrugged and shook his head. “There have been times I’ve struggled against the pull of my own spirit, drawing me northeast to protect him, but I know he would never forgive me if I followed him there. He is a man now.”
“With a mate,” she shook her head again, “and a purpose and everything. Llorveth’s Horns…”
“Of all the people to give purpose,” he said softly, a small grin edging his lips upward.
“My sentiments exactly.” Ruwena lifted her face, her eyes searching out his, and then she smiled too. “We’re doomed.”
They gave into laughter, uneasy at first as they weighed their brother’s reputation against the monumental responsibilities he carried. Reaching out, she ducked him on the shoulder with a soft fist of forgiveness and said, “Come, tell me of Finn’s purpose and of these people in the south.”
He followed his sister back to the fire, where he and Frigga told them everything they knew, starting with their exiling and ending with the parting of ways with Logren Bone-Breaker at Great Sontok. The Hunters were skeptical, even a little prejudice about joining forces with Hodon’s men in the south. Knut, who was five years older than Viln, remembered Hodon, whom he called a good man, and an even better warrior. By the time the hazy sun crawled toward the sky, they’d managed to convince his sister and her Hunters to come south with them to stand against the men who’d laid waste to their home, but only after she followed her urgings east.
Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Page 39