A commotion drew their attention away from the bridge. Hector appeared on the scene like a wild prince or Prodigal son. His majestic figure carved a path through the camp, his white cloak and golden antlers announcing his presence louder than if he’d shouted it. Whispers flowed in his wake, as ellefolken emerged from the crowd and touched him as he passed.
They swarmed Hart, too, arms reaching, hands straining, and fingers lingering to touch his flank for even a mere moment. Their elk friend tossed his head and side-stepped, trying to escape the attention. He looked exhausted and nearly dead on his feet. The flight to camp hadn’t done him much good. Zaria supposed it wouldn’t – as an elk is more comfortable on the ground than carried in the air between the claws of a winter-wyvern.
Aleks slipped into the center of the camp, greeting Zaria and the others where they stood on the sidelines. His red hair was wind-blown, even more so than the others. He told them quietly about his conversation with his grandmother as Edevart and Frida, his wife, a redheaded and freckle-faced elf, joined them.
“Silje, I’m glad to see you’ve gathered the army,” Hector said, as he strode before the thrones. “How are things here? Edevart mentioned you were dealing with mares and hulders. When did they show up?”
The elven queen inclined her head. “I would not have thought it possible had I not seen them with my own eyes. Kafirr and I have had to double the night guards, and it still might not be enough.” She waved to Hart. “I am so pleased to see that your son has been returned to us. This is excellent news and better timing. The woods beyond this line of trees are all rotted.”
Her voice was like bells, pure and bright, musical, high like a soprano. It matched her ethereal beauty. Petite though she was, there was strength in her features. She wore a golden, pearl-studded wreath around her head. Her face was clean and sweet, her eyes wide and blue. It was the kind of face men would go to war for, just so they could be graced with a smile. Zaria would be inclined to hate her if she wasn’t so unfailingly kind.
King Kafirr, on the other hand, was just the opposite. He was night to Silje’s day with his dark black hair, gray skin, and discolored teeth. He towered over Silje, and few trolls, elves, and ellefolken came close to his height. Only the giants stood taller, and he kept them far away from him. Self-serving and determined, cantankerous and blunt, Kafirr’s pale blue eyes missed nothing. He sat on his wide stone throne, looking down his long, knife-sharp nose at Hector, assessing him.
“The spread is far worse than anything I’ve seen,” he said by way of greeting, unimpressed by the Stag Lord’s appearance in their midst. “You must do something. It is beginning to smell.”
“That could be the ogres,” Silje said; and while her tone was polite, her eyes agreed with Kafirr’s assessment. It was beginning to smell.
“It’s the trees,” the troll said.
Kafirr’s voice was hard and menacing, and there was a growling quality to his words, as if he was more beast than being. Upon his head, a crown made of frost dripped steadily, the warm night air causing it to melt onto his wolf-fur collar. His claw-like nails drummed idly on the armrest, waiting for a response.
“Do you think you can reverse it?” Silje asked Hector. “How many of your kind will you be able to save?”
Kafirr snorted. “More like, how many will be doomed by his inaction? I’d be surprised if you could save even one. The trees are foul. Your precious ellefolken must all be dead.”
Hector cut his gaze to Kafirr. “You underestimate the strength of the ellefolken. My people are stronger than you think and braver. They will not abandon their posts.”
“With you as the next Golden King, I would have,” Kafirr said.
“We all know what kind of troll you are,” Hector said, his blue eyes flinty.
Kafirr growled. “I’ve been at the front lines with my trolden for months, while you’ve been larking about all of Norway, doing what, precisely? Letting a stupid girl release Koll from his imprisonment.”
“I didn’t know,” Zaria said, defending herself.
“Stupid,” Kafirr repeated. “But is it your fault that you’re that way? Or your mother’s?”
Zaria gritted her teeth to keep from retorting. It wouldn’t do any good. Her cheeks reddened and she looked away. What she wouldn’t give to wipe the smug smirk off the troll’s face with her magic. Instead, she took a deep breath and released it.
“Kafirr is indispensable to us,” Silje said, breaking the hostility with a pointed look at Hector. “His trolden have been bearing the burden of keeping out the hags and their wolverines. They would have decimated us, if it wasn’t for him. Their numbers are far larger than we anticipated.”
“They grew quietly in obscurity,” Kafirr said. “It won’t matter how many they have in the end. Morvin and his trolden will find their nest and burn it to the ground.”
“What about Jorkden?” asked Zaria, unable to stop the question.
“Jorkden and his trolden are with my leading warriors. Together, they guard the waters, stopping the enemy’s advance that way, while the Stag Lord’s ellefolken shore up the forest.”
“Are some committing to the transformation?” asked Hector. “They should be helping to guard against the mares and hulders. I don’t need them to bolster the Golden Kings.”
“Yes, you do,” replied Silje. She glanced at Zaria and her friends and continued warmly, but dismissively, “Dear children, please leave us now and find yourselves some lodging. The four of us have much to discuss about tomorrow’s tactical requirements.”
Chapter Ten: Some Girl’s Shoes
Aleks took Zaria’s sleeve and guided her out of the center court. Hart looked over his shoulder at them, and then turned back, as Hector rested a hand on his flank. Zaria turned away and followed Edevart and Frida, as they led her and her friends through the camp to their tents.
That night Zaria tossed and turned. Many thoughts drifted across her mind, like so many loose threads needing to be tamed. She couldn’t catch a single one for long enough in order to recognize it. The near-constant howling and snarling from forces clashing on the camp’s boundary didn’t help. Some were so hair-raising she thought perhaps one of the dreaded mares or hulders had slipped into the camp.
Her thoughts swirled as she wrestled with them. She worried about Olaf and Floki making their way to join their troops, the upcoming battle for the bridge, and Olaf’s threat. She knew that getting the golden shoes so she and her friends could cross the Gjallarbrú was imperative, but also knew that getting them would mean even more danger.
Olaf would stop at nothing to get a pair for himself, so he could sneak into the Under Realm. She thought about Olaf joining Koll down there… and she wondered what the secret was for removing the golden shoes. Did Olaf know it? Would he be able to remove the golden shoes that trapped Koll?
She worried about Hector and Hart and the rotting Golden Kings, whose rot was the fault of the dragons’ corrupting influence. She feared that the situation on the other side of the Gjöll would be worse than they imagined. That it wouldn’t only be Koll loose, but that his brothers Fritjof and Egil would be beside him, waging war against Queen Helena.
All of which made her think of her birth mother. How did she feel about Helena? About how Valgard, her birth father, died? Or the fact that fighting dragons, however Helena did it, mattered more than Zaria? She knew it wasn’t fair – dragons were awful beings and the world needed to be protected from them – but she couldn’t help it. Part of her was hurt.
For as much as she loved her mom and dad, and that is who they were – her mom and dad – Merry and Colonel Fierce couldn’t teach her about her magic or her past, no matter how much they loved her, or she loved them.
She tossed again, feeling hot in the stuffy tent, all her doubts and fears about the upcoming battle robbing her of peace. She wondered how she was going to do. Would her magic be sufficient? Would she be strong enough? Fast enough? Or would, despite everything, the dragons wi
n? If they won, what would happen next? How could she, if she failed, still stand up to fight?
Suddenly, Zaria didn’t have a moment left to worry, for a piercing shriek far higher, and more desperate than any other that had come before, broke the silence. It curdled the air and stole the breath from her lungs. Aleks leapt from his sleeping bag and raced Zaria to the flap of their tent, both of them stepping on the others in their haste.
“Watch it,” Filip grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
Christoffer stared at them blearily and yawned. “What’s going on out there?”
“A trio of banshees broke into the camp,” Aleks said from the doorway.
The banshees wailed at the top of their lungs, bringing the mountain-trolls to their knees, hands over their ears. A nearby giant froze in place, cracks appearing along his arms and legs at the banshees’ keening agonies. A few elves and ellefolken, who’d managed to keep their feet, shot arrows at the banshees. They dodged the attack with ease. Movement flickered at their backs.
Zaria gasped. “I see Prince Floki. He’s with the dwarves. They’re chasing away the banshees. Do you see him? He’s perched on a reindeer. Wait! All the dwarves with him are on reindeer – he’s on the one with a single antler.”
“Where is he?” demanded Aleks.
“There,” she said pointing to the trees. “What is he doing? Why did he and the others help us?”
Aleks frowned. “Does he think he can join us now? We know his true colors!”
Christoffer wedged himself between them and looked out. “We’re in trouble, now,” he said.
“That’s nothing new,” Geirr replied, yawning. “Wake me up when the real dangerous stuff starts.”
The trolls were welcoming the dwarves into the camp. Elves and ellefolken were putting away their bows. The giant herded all the dwarves and their reindeer inside. It appeared the prince’s ruse had worked.
“Surely, surely, Hector will say something and the dwarves will be detained,” Zaria said, aghast, clasping her neck.
“I already did,” he growled, appearing out of nowhere.
Zaria shrieked in surprise. Aleks clamped a hand over her mouth. “What’s happening?” he demanded.
“King Kafirr rejected my words about Floki. He said his father sent the troops, and maybe Flein did, but if he did, then he doesn’t know about his son’s foul betrayal.” He laid a hand on Zaria’s and Aleks’ shoulders. “This place isn’t safe for us anymore. Prince Floki cannot be trusted, and perhaps not even King Kafirr. We’re leaving. Right now.”
“Hart, too?” Zaria asked, peering around the Stag Lord for the elk.
“Hart, too,” confirmed Hector. “He’s waiting for us. Come. Leave everything behind. We’re going to have to run for it.”
“What about Queen Silje?” asked Aleks. “Someone should warn her there are traitors in her army’s midst.”
Hector squeezed Aleks’ shoulder. “Silje is a smart lass. She couldn’t risk destroying an alliance with the dwarves or trolls without proof. I trust she’ll keep both eyes open, when it comes to those two.”
“Just in case they’re bad guys,” Christoffer said.
Hector nodded. “Just in case they’re bad guys,” he agreed. “I hope for our sakes, it’s only Floki and his dwarves we have to worry about. There are far, far more trolls wandering around than elves. Come on lads, shoes on, we have to leave.”
Geirr and Filip hurried to put on their shoes. When they were ready, everyone followed Hector through the camp. They stuck to the shadows and crept past clusters of warriors milling around the camp. They even avoided the ellefolken, which when they questioned him about, Hector merely said, “It’s easier to keep a secret when nobody knows it.”
Hart waited for them just inside the woods. A fleece blanket rested on his back. He nodded to Zaria as she approached and bent his front legs to let her climb up.
“No, Hart,” she said, brushing her braids out of the way and rubbing his black nose. “You needn’t exert yourself. I know you’re tired.”
“We’re all tired,” Geirr said, stretching and rubbing his face. “Nobody got much sleep with all the hooting and hollering.”
“I don’t know about you, but I slept okay until the banshees wailed.” Filip said, running a hand through his hair and giving himself a shake.
“That’s because you snore like one,” Christoffer joked. “You screaming at us would probably have been easier to sleep through than listening to you snore all night.”
“Rude, mate, rude,” Filip said, making a rude gesture which made Christoffer laugh.
“Follow me. We go this way,” Hector said.
Into the woods they went, deeper and deeper, until the camp was the faintest glimmer of light behind them. Zaria noticed with trepidation that all the trees were as rotten and gnarled as King Kafirr had claimed. Far more of the forest was affected than when she’d last been here. She averted her eyes from the semi-hidden faces screaming in the bark, unable to look them in the eye, knowing that their predicament was because of her, because she’d let Hart get captured.
They trudged in the darkness following Hector, as he scouted the way ahead. Once they avoided a couple of hags nattering to each other. Another time he halted them by a large rock, as something truly disgusting hit their noses. It was a lone ogre, trailing a small tree behind him in the dirt, like a club. Christoffer apologized for ever thinking Pekka had bad body odor.
Then, in the lightening grey-dark of an early morning, they stopped once more as a bevy of hulders skulked past. They were all beautiful – the men and women with pale sunshine hair, snowy skin, and sculpted features.
The fey courts of Niffleheim would not make any of them changelings based on their looks. Zaria only knew what they were because of the cow tails swaying behind them. Even from a safe distance, she could see their eyes were crimson red. The sight sent shivers down her back.
“Those eyes, mate,” Filip said to Aleks, shuddering. “I would not want to meet one of those up close.”
By the time the sky was pinking-up nicely in the early morning sun, Zaria and the others were famished. Hector took them through a natural stone arch and into another world. The clearing was surrounded on all four sides with a large stone wall that almost made a dome at the top. A lopsided ovoid opening let in the weather, whatever it may be.
Green moss and lichen grew up the sides creating a vertical carpet that ran around the entire space. Tall grasses blanketed the ground leading to a single, large, leafy tree with a trunk as big as a house. Its canopy blossomed outward, trying to reach the sky and to brush against the stone walls protecting it. Carved into the trunk was one, large, two-toned design with the exposed wood and the bark creating a pattern that reminded Zaria of rosemåling, a Norwegian folk-art style with floral and geometric motifs.
The pattern in the trunk was symmetrical, radiating from a central arched Dutch door. Stylized tulips, roses, and six-petal flowers, perhaps daisies, bloomed against scrolls, dots, leaves, and teardrops. The effect was a circular design that went outward and upward, until it disappeared into the branches. It stole Zaria’s breath away.
“Wow,” said Christoffer. “That took someone a lot of work.”
“Does the witch of the woods live there?” asked Aleks, fingering the stargazer in his pocket.
Hector nodded and pressed through the waist-high grasses to get to the tree. “The witch lives here.”
“Does she have a name?” asked Zaria.
“Not one that she shares,” said Hector. “She says names are too powerful to give lightly, so she hides her own. Hart, stay in the meadow.”
Hart snorted as if to say, “Where else would I go?” Then he went to eat the grasses, pulling up great hunks of it. He chewed it contentedly, ignoring them as they approached the witch’s home.
Hector rapped on the door. A moment later the top half of the door opened and an old woman stuck her head out. Her silver-blonde hair was covered in a red and whit
e patterned head scarf. She wore a white blouse and a red apron. In her hands was a greying towel, its original color undistinguishable. She used it to dry a fading yellow mug.
“Stag Lord,” she greeted, and then looked to the children behind him and then to the elk eating her yard. “I see you brought me visitors. I recognize Hart, Princess Zaria, and a changeling. The others are human. Why are they here?”
“Hello,” Zaria said meekly, waving.
“We’re here to collect Queen Helena’s shoes.”
She blinked owlishly at them and then chuckled. “As simple as that, is it?”
Hector smiled tiredly. “I know better, witch, especially since I only brought you one pair, and I’m going to require seven in total.”
“Seven?” she asked, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. “Seven. Stag Lord, that is truly impossible.”
“I’ll pay for them,” he said, before pressing, “Please, you must help us. The dragons have nearly rotted through the Under Realm. Their army awaits them on this side of the Gjallarbrú.”
“I’ve heard the banshees. I’ve tricked the hags. I’ve felt the hulders’ breath. I’ve seen the mares’ visions. I’ve smelled the ogres. I know what you face, but seven pairs of Queen Helena’s shoes I do not have. She would never allow so many to be freely available. The ramifications would be terrible if they fell into the wrong hands.”
“How many do you have?” he questioned.
She thought about it, leaning on the ledge. “Two,” she replied. “Yours and the pair Helena gave me for her daughter’s return.”
Hector bit back a sound of frustration. “Of course, it’s only two.” He rubbed his jaw. “Can you make more?”
The witch turned her gaze to Aleks. “Give the boy to me from now until the end of next summer, and I can make you four pairs. You won’t need the last.”
“No,” Aleks and Hector said at the same time.
The witch laughed, clapping her hands in delight. “Are you sure, Changeling? I could use a good strong back and pair of hands around here. I can keep you safe, and staying in my glen will give you back all your powers… over time.”
Zaria Fierce and the Dragon Keeper's Golden Shoes Page 11