by Voima
Eirik glanced behind him at his warriors, starting to gather up their slain comrades and tending to the wounded. “Maybe you and your friend Roric have been more trouble to me than you’re worth,” he said thoughtfully. “At this rate I won’t have any warriors left at all. I don’t know what you’re doing wandering around here by yourself, but would you like to join us?”
“What?” gasped Valmar.
“It’s one way to make sure I don’t have to worry about you as an enemy again,” Eirik replied. “The alternative of course,” with an evil grin, “would be to sacrifice you to the lords of death. The sunset seems to take forever around here, but the sun is getting lower. As soon as it’s gone we’ll sing the songs for our slain comrades and call on death to take them. So start thinking about your choice!”
3
No more chasms opened in the earth as Karin and Roric hurried toward the ridge the Wanderer had indicated. “I know this place,” said Roric suddenly. “There was a cave here that led into the back of your faeys’ burrows.”
Karin looked around wildly at the white limestone thrusting up through the grass, almost expecting to see the faeys here. But— She could not leave without Valmar. She had gone beyond terror to a state where she could scarcely think coherently, but she clung to the knowledge that she had come here to rescue him, and rescue him she would.
“Let’s make sure the way is still open while we wait,” said Roric. He led her a short distance from where a spring bubbled from the earth to where its water fell over a lip of stone into a sinkhole. It looked disturbingly dark to her, but he started climbing down. “I followed the stream back, and there I was, among the faeys near Hadros’s castle.”
She leaned over the edge of the little cliff, watching his progress. “The stream flows back here into a pool,” he called. His voice echoed hollowly. “And I think if I go back just a little further—”
There was silence. “Roric?” Karin called, then “Roric!” She swung over the cliff edge and was scrambling after him when she heard his voice again below her.
“There’s nothing there. There’s no way past the pool.” His voice was dull, almost expressionless. “I had thought I could get you home this way, but I’ll have to try something else.”
“There may be no way until the Wanderers open it for us,” she suggested.
“There was a way before.” He climbed back up beside her. “The Wanderer must want us to stay here, not returning home yet. I wish I knew why.”
They sat on the grass on the ridge, looking across the darkening landscape. Only a quarter of the sun’s disk, glowing a dark red, still emerged above the horizon.
“What’s that?” asked Roric after a minute. “It looks like signal fires.”
“Eirik’s men?” she suggested. “But who would they be signaling?”
“I don’t think those fires are Eirik’s,” said Roric, suddenly very tense and quiet. “Listen.”
From off in the other direction they could hear voices carried on the wind. There was a steady beating, as of a sword against a shield, and the voices were singing to the rhythm. As they came closer, the words gradually became more clear.
“. . . in fellowship, forged in war,
“Following Eirik and his swift sword!
“Conquering now, and forever more!
“Women all love us, for we brave death,
“Taking in victory with every breath:
“Stronger and truer than all of the rest . . .”
Karin jumped up. “I don’t need to hear any more of Eirik’s songs!” she said sharply, hands over her ears.
“And after our last meeting I’m not eager to meet him again myself,” said Roric. “Let’s get down behind those trees.”
They watched from hiding as Eirik’s men went by, singing enthusiastically. They led a magnificent white stallion that did not seem to want to be led. Karin looked for but did not see Wigla.
“It looks like they have captured someone,” said Roric, “or maybe even two people. Do you think it’s some of those beings from one of the manors? You’d think Eirik would realize no one is going to pay ransom for any of them.”
Karin gave a gasp and started to leap to her feet. “Roric!” she said in a whisper as he pulled her down again. “They have Valmar!”
He craned his neck, looking. In the heavy shadows of sunset it was growing hard to see clearly. The young man lying passively in his bonds, allowing himself be carried, did look like Valmar, but bigger, more muscular. A young woman with curling dark hair was also being carried, bound.
Then Karin saw what else Eirik’s men were carrying. Piled on litters were six dead bodies.
“Stay still,” said Roric in her ear. “It’s no use rushing them. When the Wanderer returns we should have a chance in the confusion to rescue Valmar.”
“I think I know what Eirik is planning,” Karin whispered back, feeling cold from her throat to her feet. “Some of his warriors were killed, and he is going to make an offering to the lords of death. We don’t have time to wait. Eirik is going to offer Valmar as a sacrifice.”
Roric’s eyes bored into hers. “But this is the immortal realm of voima!” he hissed. “They cannot summon the lords of death here!”
She shook her head. “Try telling that to Eirik. Look at how he’s having the bodies carefully laid out. He called on death from his fortress—and something answered . . .”
The sun was now only a brilliant red line, pulsing with light. The warriors stopped at the top of the ridge, only a few dozen yards from where Karin and Roric lay hidden by leaves and shadow. “It should be dark soon at last!” Eirik called to his men. “Bring some of the food; we’ll need it for the sacrifice.”
The men brought a basket of bread and a skin of ale. Taken from one of the manors, thought Karin, who could see even at this distance that the bread was moldy.
“Too bad we don’t have any of the women,” Eirik commented, fists on his hips. “The calling should really be done by a woman. Trust Wigla to desert me just when I needed her.”
“How about the mountain cat here?” one of his men suggested.
Eirik went to look at the bound woman with the curling hair. “We do seem to be having a run of women who think they can fight like men,” he said thoughtfully. “I never did get a chance to teach the princess more womanly ways.”
Karin ground her teeth and kept silent.
“So,” said Eirik, “how would you like to make the offering and call on the lords of death to take our brothers?”
“They will not hear you here,” she replied confidently. “I know the Wanderers had some plan of sending a mortal down to Hel to ask Death to come, but the lords of death are not going to answer a call from our realm.”
“What do you mean, our realm?” Eirik sneered. “You think you are a lady of voima?”
“That’s right.”
Eirik paused, then paced up and down for a moment, looking irritably to where the last of the sun still lingered. “If you really are an immortal,” he said after a moment, “what are you doing lying tied up here, or riding around with this young man who claims to be a king’s son? You should be off ruling earth and sky!”
“Well,” she said, a bit uneasily, “our full powers have not yet returned.”
Eirik shook his head and grinned. “What good are lords and ladies of voima without full powers? There is only one whose powers do not come and go, and that is death itself.”
“I will not, Eirik Eirik’s son,” she said firmly, “help you call on death. I have been thinking this over, and, when our full powers blossom, it would be best if our realm was just as it was before, an immortal realm with no taint of mortality.”
“Then how do you explain six of our brothers dying here?” He stopped in his pacing and whirled toward her. “How did you know my father’s name?”
“She already told you. She is one of the immortals.”
It was Valmar who spoke, and Karin clenched her fists at hearing his
voice—not the good-natured, idealistic boy’s voice she knew, but one dull with pain.
“Have you made up your mind, king’s son?” asked Eirik. “Do you want to go down to death with the rest or join us?”
“Ever since I came here,” Valmar said in the same dull voice, “I have intended to face death for the lords of voima. Perhaps I shall do so now at last—if they will still take anything from my hands.”
Eirik shifted his shoulders back and forth a minute uneasily, then shouted, “Let’s get some fires going! I think real night is coming on at last!”
“Now!” whispered Karin. “We have to rescue him now.”
Roric held her arm tight. “The Wanderers are coming.”
But those were not Wanderers. Eirik’s band reached for their swords at the sound of galloping hooves. A shadowy group of riders came rapidly toward the ridge, carrying torches. As they approached, torchlight flashed on their horned helmets.
“I fought against these,” Roric said in Karin’s ear. “The Witch said they are women but I am still not certain—they are small warriors but tough.”
The riders swept around Eirik’s warriors. One shouted, “Free our sister, mortals!” and it was a woman’s voice.
Eirik and his men immediately formed a tight circle, back to back, Valmar and the woman at the center. “More ladies of voima, I see!” the outlaw king yelled mockingly. “And no lords of voima to comfort you? We can help you there!”
Karin’s breath came in shallow gasps. Waiting and watching was almost intolerable, but if she rushed out she did not know which side she would try to help.
“Watch their blades!” came a shout from the middle of Eirik’s warriors, the woman they had captured. “Mortals can wound us now!”
“Mortals can do many things!” Eirik yelled in agreement. He leaped forward, sword in his hand. The sword, to Karin’s amazement, was singing. A horned rider thrust him back with her spear. But he spun around and leaped forward again, and she was just able to catch the blow on her shield.
And then the battle was joined. Screams and the clang of weapons rose up. And as Eirik’s band fought the horned warriors the last burning edge of the sun disappeared. The crimson sky darkened toward the color of old blood, and more thunderclouds moved rapidly toward them.
“They can’t hold the circle,” said Roric in a low voice, all his muscles tensing. “In another minute we should be able to get to Valmar.” He gave a chuckle with no mirth behind it. “Now that I have no honor left, I can plunge straight into the middle of a battle and straight out again.”
Karin’s eye was caught by something white moving across the twilight landscape. This time it was the Wanderers.
But they seemed to be fleeing, not coming to join the battle. The shadows behind them seemed dense somehow— And then she saw they were pursued by the dragon.
They were running, the lords of voima were running in terror. The dragon, seeming even more ferocious on the open plain than it had in its den, was maybe a quarter mile behind, flying low with its neck extended. Its eyes glowed like a forest fire. In its den it had been slow and inexorable; here it had picked up speed until it moved like an eagle before the wind.
“Take a bite from a dragon’s mouth and see how immortal you are then!” Eirik shouted gleefully.
“Mortals are supposed to have extra powers here,” Roric commented quietly in a tone pitched below the shouting and the din, edging carefully forward. No one looked in their direction; all the fighters had turned to stare. “I presume that also applies to creatures of voima which are supposed to stay in mortal realms.”
There were a dozen Wanderers, all looking strangely shorter, less imposing than had the one who had spoken to them. They called out as they came toward the Hearthkeepers, ignoring Eirik and his men. “Help us! Our powers are failing with the end of day! Destruction is loose in the realms of voima! You must help us!”
This must be the most vulnerable moment for the realms of voima, Karin thought, in all the great cycles that fate ordained. The powers of the lords of voima were waning fast, but those who would replace them had not yet come to power. She expected the Hearthkeepers to laugh derisively at the plea for help, but instead they whirled, their mares rearing, and pounded to meet the Wanderers
“Look at them go!” Eirik shouted after them. “They’ve no stomach for a fight with real men!”
He started to turn back toward Valmar and the bodies of his slain warriors, but his men too were off, racing on foot after the mounted Hearthkeepers. “Come back and fight! We’ve got you now! You’re caught between Eirik and a dragon!”
After only a second’s hesitation, the outlaw king too ran after them. Roric was in motion at once, hurrying up onto the ridge toward where Valmar and the one Hearthkeeper still lay bound. Karin was only a step behind.
“I should have expected it,” she gasped. “Women always have to come to men’s rescue when they get themselves into serious trouble.”
There was a great bellow from the dragon as the Hearthkeepers reached it, but Roric did not turn his head. Karin closed her eyes for a second as though to fend off a horrifying realization. If somehow, at this moment of weakness, all the lords and ladies of voima were destroyed, what would that mean for mortal realms?
Roric went straight toward Valmar, jumping over the dead bodies spread out on the ground, not taking the extra seconds to go around. Karin caught her breath through her teeth. Even in the heat of battle, it was said, warriors avoided stepping across the dead unless they were convinced that they would join them very soon.
Valmar lay on the grass without struggling, his face showing no expression. For a moment he looked so unlike the Valmar she knew that Karin wondered wildly if he might be someone else. But in a second his face changed, lighting up in surprise and delight as he recognized them.
“Karin!” he cried. Then his eyes went wide as Roric leaned over him with a blade in his hand. The white stallion whinnied and tried to rear, but he too was tied.
Roric did not bother saying that he had come to rescue Valmar, not to kill him. The knife slashed through the ropes that held him, and Karin saw Valmar close his eyes, swallow, and resume his stony expression. He had passed in a second from joy to terror to embarrassment and now had again nothing in him of her little brother.
“I can’t take time to explain,” said Roric fiercely, gripping Valmar by the shoulders. “Just listen and do what I tell you.”
But he paused for a second to turn and slash the curly-haired woman’s ropes, then whirled back to Valmar. For a moment he smiled. “Attractive woman you found,” he said, then was grim again. “I hope the Wanderers remembered to open the way back into mortal realms before their powers went. Take Karin home. Go! Don’t worry about me or anything else.”
Karin expected the Hearthkeeper to race to join her sisters, but instead she sat quietly, rubbing her wrists where they had been tied, looking at Valmar with a half smile on her face.
Roric glanced over his shoulder. A crowd of warriors was rushing back toward them across the plain. Eirik must have decided that staying away from a battle with a dragon was better for men who had no honor to lose anyway.
Roric jerked Valmar to his feet and pushed him forward. “Along the stream from the spring, then down the waterfall,” he said roughly. “Karin knows the way. You’ll either tumble through into the faeys’ burrow near Hadros’s castle, or we’ll be the stuff of story—if anyone ever hears of it.” He tossed Valmar his knife, glittering in the twilight, and drew his sword. “Get Karin through if you can, get her through now. I’ll protect your backs. If they kill me and there’s no way through, take as many of them to Hel with you as possible.”
“They’re getting away!” Eirik yelled. “Stop them!” Two of his younger warriors, already running even faster than the rest, pulled ahead of the band, coming straight toward them.
Valmar came to life again. He started in the direction Roric had pointed, Karin’s hand clasped in his, then abruptl
y turned back.
“Go!” the woman called. “I shall not follow you to mortal realms.” And she was away then herself, running quickly and lightly, not toward Eirik’s band, which was now very close, but off at an angle, as though she intended to circle around and join the Hearthkeepers’ battle against the dragon.
Valmar stretched out a hand tentatively, imploringly, either toward the woman or toward his horse. The white stallion whinnied again, pawing the ground. “What are you waiting for?” Roric demanded, then gave a humorless laugh. “The faeys don’t want another horse in their burrows!”
When Valmar still hesitated, Karin tugged at his hand. “Come on, little brother,” she said as she had said to him a thousand times over the years, forcing her voice to be gentle. His face was now not expressionless but anguished. After she had come all this long hard way to rescue him, she could not let his hesitancy now doom them. She had no idea what had happened to him in this realm, how he had served the Wanderers or been taken prisoner by Eirik, or why he had apparently captured a Hearthkeeper. But if there was safety for him she had to take him to it.
Roric, much less gentle, gave them both a hard push. “Get away! Now!” The first of Eirik’s warriors had reached the base of the ridge and were coming fast up the slope. There was another great bellow from the dragon. Karin, running and dragging Valmar with her, caught a flash of lightning from the corner of her eye. Would the Hearthkeepers and their swords, with the help of the Wanderers and the last of their power to shape this realm, be able to stop the dragon?
And if not, even if they made it safely into the faeys’ burrows, would mortal realms even still exist on the other side?
Roric, behind them, shouted defiance at Eirik’s men. Karin reached the lip of the little cliff and swung over the edge. Valmar, more clumsily, followed her. She lowered herself downward as fast as she could. At the bottom of the waterfall the water poured into a stream that ran back to a pool, inside a limestone cave.