by Lee Savino
I leapt the rest of the way. The ground jarred my legs but after staggering sideways, I marshaled my balance enough to run.
From then on, it was a game. The warriors rushed after me; I ran into the undergrowth, dropping to my belly and crawling under briars while the warriors cursed and tried to come after me.
A wolf almost caught me when I exited, and I swung up into another tree, racing along, leaping from branch to branch.
I made the mistake of looking back, once. A fire grew in the sky. A sob caught in my throat when I realized what it was—Yggdrasil was burning. They’d set fire to my home.
Forcing my heavy legs onwards, I ducked and rolled down a steep hill, racing for the boundary of the mountain.
Thorsteinn
I stood with my arms crossed over my chest, facing the Alphas. Beside me, Vik fingered his axe.
“The raven is a messenger of Odin,” one of the Alphas was telling the others. “We can hope the Corpse King does not use them for his evil purposes.”
“Any word from the witches?”
“No. And Rosalind is awake but doesn’t remember anything.” The Alphas kept murmuring while we waited.
Finally, I cleared my throat.
“Patience, warrior,” Samuel threw a sympathetic glance my way. “We are waiting for the pack to gather.”
“With respect,” I inclined my head. “We left our mate alone and promised to return to her shortly.”
“So, you have mated her?” Daegan asked.
“The bond is new, but we believe it’s strong,” Vik reported. “But even if it would not survive a test, we claim Sorrel as mate. Anyone who wants her dead will feel the blade of my axe.”
“Well said,” Maddox thumped the arm of his seat. Ragnvald steeped his fingers, looking thoughtful. Samuel opened his mouth but before he could speak a shout made us turn.
“Thorsteinn! Vik!”
“Knut?” I bounded across the clearing to him. My weapon appeared in my hand.
“Fire in your lodge,” he reported.
“Sorrel—?”
“Escaped.”
“What? What is the meaning of this?” Samuel roared.
“A mob came for her,” Knut said. “I could not stop them.”
Samuel pounded the arm of his great throne, “I gave orders—”
“They disobeyed,” Knut snapped.
“Sorrel,” I whispered. As one, Vik and I clutched our weapons and ran from the clearing. We had to find our mate.
Sorrel
I reached the boundary at the first light of dawn. There were no patrols of draugr in sight, but I hefted a rune stone anyway, glad I’d thought to pack some.
I hesitated at the foot of the hill, weighing my options. I could run and hide for a time, and hope Thorsteinn and Vik could find me. I couldn’t leave tracks for them to find and risk the other warriors catching me.
Or, I could run without stopping, deep into enemy territory. I had the skills to survive. I could live in the wilderness for good. Just like I’d planned to, before the Berserkers captured me. I could be free.
But freedom wouldn’t mean anything without Thorsteinn and Vik. I hadn’t meant to let them in, but they knocked down my walls and stormed the door anyway.
Whipping out an arrow, I notched my bow and let it fly striking a tree and pointing in the direction where I’d go. My warriors were expert trackers. They’d understand. They would find me.
I had almost reached the border when a group of warriors stepped out from behind a cluster of birch.
“Got you,” Ragnar said, and grabbed me by the jerkin.
I struggled, but they took my bow and arrow and knives, and pulled a bag over my head.
Vik
We reached the lodge just as the final planks caught fire. Ash and burning wood rained down. A few warriors stood around and cheered. Thorsteinn shoved them aside, ignoring their shouted insults. We had to find Sorrel.
“This way,” I ran to the remnants of the ladder. Someone had smeared pitch onto it so it’d burn. The charred ends smoked high above our heads. “She dropped to the ground here.” I pointed to the set of footprints. “She ran that way, into the brambles.”
“She’s carrying a pack,” Thorsteinn muttered.
“She knew the lodge would be attacked. She left before it happened,” I said sharply. “She did not leave us.” I brushed by him roughly, hoping it was true.
“We need to find her.” We raced down the hill, leaving our burning home behind.
Sorrel
My world was darkness. The bag covered my face and body, the rough threads rubbing my face. The scent of dirt surrounded me. I swallowed my nausea as the warrior carried me like a sack of potatoes, uncaring how he jostled me. My heart beat in panic and I gritted my teeth so I wouldn’t cry out. Thorsteinn and Vik would come for me. They would find me.
“Here we are,” someone grunted, and my world turned upside down. I landed on the ground, stunned for a moment. Someone grabbed my leg and flipped me, and I was falling, falling.
I landed in darkness. Overhead a few warriors leaned over the pit where they’d thrown me.
“There. That’ll teach her.”
“No please,” I lifted my hands to the sky, but the darkness covered the round hole and sealed away the sun.
Everything went dark.
Thorsteinn
“There.” I pointed to the path of disturbed leaves marking Sorrel’s path. “She went towards the boundary.”
“Of course she did,” Vik said. “She knows how to survive out there. We taught her.”
He took off and I ran beside him. “We must consider that she does not want to be found. She took her pack. Stores for food—”
“No,” Vik said. “She did not run from us.”
“She may have. Women always leave.”
“She is not any woman. She is ours,” he bellowed. His skin cracked and fur sprouted down his arm. Soon the beast would break free.
That’s when I saw the arrow, the fletch fluttering high above our heads. “Look there,” I shouted, and Vik grunted. We turned and raced the way the arrow pointed.
“Forgive me, Sorrel,” I muttered to myself as I ran. “I never should’ve doubted you.”
Sorrel
A moaning sound filled the pit. My hand flew to my throat and I realized the sound came from me. It cut off abruptly and there was nothing. No noise. No light. My heart beat pounded in my ears.
Something rustled in the dark. Blackness rose up to swallow me. Soon there would be no Sorrel. There would be nothing of me left.
“Let me out,” It came out a croak but inside my head, I was screaming.
The darkness would eat me alive. But when I closed my eyes there was a flash of light.
There! A light around the door. Just a crack, just enough.
Thorsteinn? Vik? Help me!
Vik
We ran as monsters, tracking Sorrel. Her trail led to the boundary… straight into a waiting group of warriors. We followed their tracks and lost them in a mountain stream.
“Where is she?” Thorsteinn raged.
I cursed. The forest spun in a circle.
Leaves flew as Thorsteinn fell to all fours and raked the earth with his claws.
Vik, Sorrel’s voice whispered.
“Sorrel?” I whirled. “Where?”
The beast that was Thorsteinn swiveled his great black head towards me.
Do you hear that? I asked via our mind link.
The beast grunted.
Vik. Thorsteinn. Help!
Sorrel, we both stretched our minds towards hers. Speak to us.
Help me!
We both were running, the forest a blur around us.
What happened? Where are you?
I… I left the lodge. I had to. She sniffled. She was somewhere crouched in the dark. Alone, afraid. She hated the dark.
We know. Thorsteinn answered, sounding reasonably like himself, for all he was a fur covered monster racing besid
e me, sometimes on two feet, sometimes on four.
I ran to the boundary. The warriors caught me, and I can’t get out.
Stay with us, Sorrel, I said. Keep talking. We’re coming. Do you know where they took you?
Silence.
Then: a mindless wail.
The dark the dark the dark
“Darkness.” I mused aloud. “She hates the dark. But only when it closes around her, like in a pit…” I stopped as Thorsteinn roared beside me.
“I know where she is,” I told him, and headed back to the place of the standing stones.
Sorrel
Darkness clawed at me, crawling down my throat. I couldn’t speak. I could only reach out in my mind.
Vik. Thorsteinn. Please…
Sorrel? Sorrel!
I’m here. They caught me—I shared the image.
Stay calm, little warrior, we are coming.
A roar reached my ears. Someone was scrabbling at the stone covering my prison. I shrank back into darkness in case my captors had returned to torment me.
A body plummeted to the bottom to the pit.
Sorrel, the beast growled. Vik, his body huge and shaped like a monster, grey fur sprouting from his massive arms and torso. His face was elongated into a wolf’s muzzle, his fangs long and gleaming but I felt no fear. I ran to him.
Vik!
Sorrel. It’s me. I am here.
He hefted me against his hard torso, helping me shift to his back. Hold tight, he ordered.
I clung to him as he dug his wicked claws into the sides of the pit. His feet were giant paws. He dug them into the wall and began to climb.
Vik
I pulled us from the pit just in time to meet a mob. Thorsteinn danced with a trio of warriors, spinning, thrusting, parrying their blows with his axe.
I herded Sorrel behind me, roaring as I faced another group of warriors.
“Cowards,” I raged. “Attacking our defenseless mate.”
“She tried to murder a spaewife,” a warrior’s shout ended in a gargle. He ripped an arrow from his throat, his face contorting as the beast took over his form.
Sorrel straightened behind me, her face bloodless. She nodded to me and notched another arrow in her bow.
“You shouldn’t have left my weapons so close to the pit,” she snarled, and loosed another arrow into the fray.
Laughing wildly, I waded into the fight, swinging my axe.
Sorrel
All around, warriors raged, cursing me and calling for my blood.
Thorsteinn and Vik held the line, hulking monsters covered in silver or black fur. They kept the mob from reaching me, but I was not helpless. I backed up to a rocky outcropping and chose my targets carefully, shooting over the monsters’ heads.
“Enough,” a blond warrior roared. I angled my bow upwards as he and the three Alphas joined the fight. Two dark-haired Alphas, one covered in tattoos, attacked viciously, pulling Berserkers off Thorsteinn and Vik and growling for the opposing mob to back down.
A flutter of black feathers caught my eyes. There, circling over the fight, was a raven. In its claws glinted a familiar stone.
“The moonstone,” I gasped. I was out of arrows. Reaching in my pockets, I drew out the rune stones, picked a patch of bare ground, and threw them down.
The blast shook the clearing. Berserkers fell to their knees, coughing in the acrid smoke.
My head was ringing when Thorsteinn and Vik crawled to me.
“Sorrel? Are you hurt?”
“No,” I coughed. “But there was a raven—look—”
A flash and a woman appeared between us and the Alphas. Her hair was a silver-gold braid crowning her head. She wore a simple shift that left her arms and legs bare.
“Enough,” she ordered, her low voice somehow ringing over the warriors. The shouting ceased.
“Yseult,” The Alpha Samuel greeted her, wiping grit from his red eyes.
Four huge warriors, clad in armor like I’d never seen, clanked forward and surrounded the blonde witch, blocking anyone’s view of her. Just as well, something in her face was too terrible to look at directly.
“I see I have come just in time,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Get these warriors out of here,” Samuel ordered, and the Alphas began shoving the unruly pack members out of the clearing. “Obey or we’ll throw you in the pit,” one Alpha muttered.
“Who threw balefire?” Samuel asked.
“I did,” I spoke up. “I saw a raven with the moonstone and didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did well,” Vik whispered to me. He and Thorsteinn stood squarely in front of me, protecting me just like the four armored guards protected the witch.
“I have the moonstone,” she said, holding it aloft. It glinted in the morning light, washing us in a soft glow. “One of my sisters was flying over the land and saw it. She brought it to me. I did not know of the events with these spaewives until you sent word.”
“Can she bear witness to what happened?”
The witch nodded. “Her view was warped because she was in raven form, but now she can speak of it. She saw a spaewife entranced by the Corpse King, and another rise up and strike her down.”
I winced but the witch went on. “Without Sorrel, the moonstone would have been lost. Because of her we have what we need. With the moonstone we will defeat the Corpse King.”
Sorrel
The Alphas bid us wait in the cave while they conferred further with the witch. Vik and Thorsteinn refused to leave my side, even when one suggested they should not leave me with two Berserkers in monster form.
“Sorrel does not fear them. Why should we interfere?” The quiet blond Alpha, Ragnvald, winked at me.
Inside the cave, I submitted to the warriors pawing over me, checking for wounds. “I’m fine. You came for me before I was harmed.”
“We never should’ve left. We will not do so again.”
I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “The mob burned our home.”
“We will build another.” Vik caught my hand. “Sorrel, you reached out to us.”
“I had to, did I not?” I flushed. “It was the only way. I did not want you to think I left you.”
“I doubted for a moment,” Thorsteinn admitted. “But then I saw the arrow and knew you ran from the mob, and not from us.”
I pulled him down by his braid and kissed him madly. Vik tugged me to him and took his turn. We were all breathing heavily when I broke away.
“What of the mob? Will the pack ever accept me?”
Vik started to answer when a shadow fell across the door.
Ragnvald beckoned. “The Alphas will see you now.”
The corridor to the Alpha’s chamber seemed shorter this time. Or perhaps the torches burned brighter. The room Ragnvald led us into held four wooden thrones, but none of the Alphas sat. I hesitated on the threshold and gripped my mate’s hands tighter.
“Come, Sorrel,” Samuel beckoned me. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but his brow was smooth, his countenance lighter. To my shock he went on bended knee to speak to me. His leonine head was level with mine. “How are you feeling?”
“I am well, sir,” I answered at Thorsteinn’s nudge. If the warriors were worried I’d cause a scene here, they needn’t be. All the fight had left me after I threw the rune stones.
“There is much to say, and even more to be done. You’ll forgive us if we keep things short. Sorrel, you’re absolved of all wrongdoing. You’re free to go.”
“What about Rosalind?” I asked. “Will she be in trouble.”
“Rosalind is still recovering. Maybe, if she remembers her actions, she will have a chance to atone.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” I said. “The Corpse King tricked her, I know it. He—” I fell silent as Vik pulled me back against him.
“We know, Sorrel,” Samuel murmured. “We will not judge her too harshly.”
“And the moonstone?” Thorsteinn asked.
“The warriors who attacked Sorrel—they will go unpunished?” Vik asked.
“We will send them to be first in the line of attack,” Samuel said.
“Their punishment is light because we need them,” Ragnvald added.
Thorsteinn growled.
“It’s all right,” I squeezed my warrior’s hands. “The Corpse King has stirred up enough trouble. Let us not war amongst ourselves.”
“Well said,” muttered the tattooed Alpha.
“It will not be wise to let Sorrel free on the mountain until the march has begun,” Samuel said. “We can offer you safe haven in here. My mate will prepare quarters—”
“No,” Thorsteinn turned me to him and cupped my face. “Do you trust us?”
I nodded. Always.
“What do you mean, Thorsteinn?” Ragnvald asked.
“Alphas, I have a solution.” Thorsteinn settled his hands on my shoulders. “If the pack will not accept Sorrel, we will leave.”
“But,” Samuel said, “We need you—”
“Send us away. All three. We will patrol the farthest reaches and will not return until the Corpse King is defeated.”
Silence fell. The Alpha’s expressions ranged from thoughtfulness to disbelief.
“You would put your mate at risk?” The tattooed Alpha asked, almost angry.
“She is well trained,” Vik said.
“She will not be at risk. She will be with us.”
“She is definitely a fighter,” Samuel mused. Vik snickered.
Ragnvald cleared his throat. “Sorrel, does this satisfy you? Will you go with them?”
“Yes. They need me to defend them,” I said.
Vik laughed again, two of the Alphas with him.
A smile cracked the head Alpha’s face. “Very well,” Samuel waved his hand. “Call us if you need aid. I will wait on your report.”