A Sacred Storm

by Theodore Brun

  Prepare for war, her husband had declared. All around Dannerborg the encampment had finally come alive, every warrior shedding his cloak of idleness in exchange for the hard byrnie of war. Every man was to make ready to move out, although in which direction they would march, no one yet knew. The Kolmark presented a vast frontier and her brother’s host could come south by any of a dozen ways. Besides this, Ringast had yet to agree with his father where their hosts should unite.

  Wherever they marched, Lilla had no intention of remaining behind. Naturally Ringast was insisting she stay at Dannerborg, safe from the worst of the danger, but if every man was preparing for war, why should she do any different? Did she not have more cause than any one of them to fight? No one had a greater debt to repay now than her.

  She nocked the arrow, drew it back, held her breath, just as her father had taught her as a girl, then released a narrow thread of air, slowly easing the pressure in her fingertips until – thrumm – the bowstring snapped and the arrow shot straight and true, striking so close to the previous arrow that it tore off a fletching feather. An old thrill passed through her, and she remembered with sudden fondness how her dead brother Staffen used to stir her into a lather of competitiveness when she was a young girl and desperate to impress him with her skill.

  ‘Imagining Saldas’s face?’ said a voice, only too familiar.

  She jerked round to see Erlan’s lean frame propped against a tree, his arms folded, his gaunt cheeks creased into something like a smile. ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Long enough to see you’ve more of your father in you than I’d known.’ He nodded at the arrows. ‘I once saw him shoot a pigeon on the wing. Hel of an eye, he had.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ Angrily, she pulled out another arrow and turned back to her target. ‘I can’t be alone with you.’

  ‘Where else would I be?’ She heard the tread of his uneven footsteps limping closer as she nocked the arrow and drew the bowstring. ‘Everyone else is dead.’ She felt his hand on her shoulder. His touch went through her like a shock of lightning. She spun around, pointing the arrowhead straight at his heart. ‘Stay away from me,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’

  Above the tip she saw his dark, fathomless eyes, intent on hers. There was no fear in them. Instead he reached out and pushed aside the point with the back of his hand like it was nothing. She felt the resistance drain out of her. He stepped inside the point. Her arms dropped and the arrow thudded harmlessly into the earth. Before she could utter a word to hold him back, he was against her, pressing her into his chest, which was harder than she remembered. Then his breath was on her lips, his mouth against hers. She let him kiss her, not even caring if anyone did see them, her senses gulping him down like cool water for her parched heart.

  ‘We only have each other now,’ he murmured when their lips parted. This directness surprised her. This urgency. Maybe his suffering had stripped him of any pretence, of any patience for taking the longer road. He pushed her back till her shoulders butted against a tree. A shiver of desire peeled up her thighs as his hands began to lift her skirts.

  ‘No,’ someone said. It was a second before she realized the word had come from her own throat. ‘No,’ she said again, firmer this time.

  ‘Don’t you want me?’

  She pushed him away. ‘You know I do. But I can’t... I won’t.’ She slid her hands around the trunk behind her, clinging to it as tightly as she could to stop herself from reaching for him. ‘I mustn’t.’

  He stepped back. In the thin lines of his face it was plain that she had struck a wound. Another wound, she thought. As if he was in want of more.

  ‘You need me, Lilla. Who else will see you through all this? Who else can you trust?’

  ‘My husband,’ she said softly, feeling a deep sadness well out of the gulf that was breaking open between them.

  ‘You mean your father’s enemy,’ he said in a bitter voice.

  ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘But you don’t love him.’

  ‘He’s a good man,’ she repeated. As if those words alone could protect her heart.

  ‘Lilla, I came here for you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You came here for revenge. And you shall have it. But it’s too late for me. Too late for us.’

  He shook his head in frustration. ‘Ever since I’ve known you, obedience has made you a slave, Lilla. Obey your father. Obey your husband. Submit to a woman like Saldas, who has taken everything from you. Is that what you’re always going to do? Always surrender? Always lie down and take whatever fate the Norns have handed you?’

  She had hurt him. But there was no doubt he knew how to hurt her back. ‘I’m not going to lie down. I’m going to fight. I’m going to fight because the blood of my father’s house must be purged. Because the stain of my brother and that viper who warms his bed must be wiped away for ever.’

  ‘Sveäland is already lost to you, Lilla. You should give it up.’

  ‘No. I won’t. I won’t! I owe it to my father. Who else is there but me? Someone has to stand up for my people, someone who knows their true heart, even if it means fighting against them now. Renewal must come. And it must come through me.’ She thought of the life being knit together in her womb, and looking into Erlan’s gaze, she wondered whether another with those same dark eyes would rise up one day to re-take her father’s rightful place.

  But even if Erlan was the father of this child, he must never know it.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said at length. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your father.’

  ‘And I’m sorry about Kai.’

  His eyes dropped to the floor. ‘Mmm. I failed him once. I won’t fail him again.’

  ‘I know.’ For some reason, she felt compelled to add, ‘You will see him again, you know. One day.’

  ‘Huh! Maybe we all will. And sooner than we’d like.’ He turned away, apparently with nothing more to say, and left her clinging to her tree.

  She watched his figure retreating through the wood, forcing herself not to call him back. Only when she was certain that he had gone did she loosen her grip on the bark and stoop to retrieve her fallen bow.

  That night she had the dream again. The swirling mist; the eagle, its eyes flashing with hate.

  She rose quietly, wrapped her fur about her and crept outside. The cut on her neck was throbbing, but the floor felt pleasantly cool under the soles of her feet. She padded through the shadows, leaving her husband to his own dreams and secret fears.

  Outside, everything was still. There was not a breath of wind, as if some vast and ancient spell had been cast over Dannerborg and all its folk, turning everything to stone.

  She climbed the staircase that clung fast to the north wall of the mead-hall and led up onto a gallery that looked out over the palisade towards her homeland. There, she slid down into the crook of the wall and gazed up at the night sky. There was no moon, only a splendid canopy of stars scattered like seed across the vastness of Ymir’s Skull.

  It was beautiful. And yet she shuddered.

  Everyone was dead, like he said. Her father, her mother, her brother Staffen, Katla, Svein, Kai... Everyone she loved. Except for him. And suddenly she had a hateful thought – hated herself for having it. Because she realized it would be easier if he were dead, too. Realized that while he lived she could only ever love him. That she could never love her husband.

  She covered her mouth, choking back the moan that suddenly rose in her throat. But the wave of sorrow quickly gave way to anger. This was Saldas’s doing. All of it. She had been deceived. They all had. Yet everything had fallen out just as Saldas had wanted.

  And the more she thought of it, the more she saw something fearful in the irresistibility of Saldas’s will. How was it that the world seemed to bend itself to her every desire, however much destruction she left in her wake? Lilla’s throat burned with outrage and she was suddenly seized with an urge to cry out for justice, cry to the stars and
the darkened moon.

  She dug her nails into her palm in frustration, welcoming the pain that shot up her arm. How easy it would be to fight Saldas’s hate with hatred of her own. Was that the only way a woman like that could be stopped?

  There is a power stronger than hate... These had been her mother’s words, uttered long ago. One of the many lessons Lilla had only half-understood. Nothing in all the Nine Worlds can overcome the power of love.

  Lilla remembered how she had thought that insipid at the time. Childish, even. But maybe her mother was right. Maybe there was a deeper wisdom hidden in her words that Lilla could use to put steel in her will. Yet almost at once, another voice spoke, mocking her. Who are you? it sneered. Don’t you know you’re too small for this? Too weak. Hadn’t Erlan spoken the truth? She was nothing but a slave to the will of others. Nothing but a slave to her fate.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ she whispered. But no sooner had she spoken than she heard an answer.

  You’re not alone.

  She gave a start, so audible was the voice, its tone so soft. Soft, yet strong as iron. She seemed to know it, though it was certainly not her mother’s.

  I will be with you, my love. You have the power within.

  I? What ‘I’ was that?

  She waited with stilled breath, longing to hear more. But the shadows were still and silent, and high above her, the stars stared down, cold and unmoved.

  Yet in the silence, she was suddenly sure of one thing: Saldas must fall.

  She must...

  After that, there could be a new beginning.

  Lilla lay back and let her gaze drift among the stars. A memory came – of her mother standing beside her father. Two lives that had given her life. She wondered where they were now. In the halls of Hel? In Valhalla? Or some other place? Maybe they lived only in her now. Yes. In her and in the life within her.

  Instinctively her hand moved to her belly.

  There is no one else. Only she was the true heir to her father and the true queen of her people. She must take up her crown. And with that resolution sealed in her mind, her eyelids grew heavy and a peace settled over her, as wide and gentle as the dew.

  Soon she knew she was dreaming, because she was climbing higher and higher, spiralling upwards on the still air like an eagle until she could see out across the land, over forests and fields and lakes and heaths and hills.

  As she looked, she heard the sigh of the sea. She turned to the east and the stars began to stir, hardly at first, but then more until the chinks of light began to ripple and roll, as though she no longer gazed into the sky but upon its reflection on the surface of the sea.

  As she looked it seemed like the waves grew, the stars climbing and falling, swelling into foaming breakers. Then she saw a long spit of land that split the waters like a dagger. Around it thick forest skirted the shoreline, and a bleak, bald hill rose out of the darkness to the south. She heard noises: ropes gnawing, the rush and chuckle of a clinker-hull over water, the buck and spray of bow-breakers. She saw ships, oars pounding the swell, sails thrapping in the building wind. Dozens of ships now, hundreds, surging towards the dagger-spit of land. Men’s laughter seasoned the air. She saw linden shields, banners whipped by the sea-spray, steel points and ash-shafts.

  An army was riding the wind from the east.

  Then her gaze turned north and everything changed. She smelled barley fields, heard the thud of hooves. She looked left and right and saw a thousand horses flanking her, galloping riderless. Black and brown, white and grey – beasts of every colour and marking, muzzles foaming in a killing froth. She was galloping herself now, thundering through the fields towards a shadow spread across the horizon.

  ‘Lilla!’ she heard as the shadow loomed into a wall of trees.

  ‘Lilla!’ again, as she broke through the treeline and into the forest.

  ‘Wake up, Lilla.’ Her eyes suddenly opened. Above her, a face slowly took form. ‘What are you doing out here?’ Her husband’s voice.

  She reached up and clasped him. Pulled him close. ‘They’re in the forest,’ she whispered. ‘They’re in the forest now.’

  ‘Who are?’

  ‘Sigurd – and his army.’

  ‘What?’ Ringast looked confused but he must have seen the certainty in her eyes. ‘Go on. Tell me what you’ve seen.’

  ‘I saw a host of horses swarming through the forest. And a fleet of ships carrying an army with the wind.’

  ‘Where were they? What else did you see?’

  ‘I don’t know – I—’

  ‘Think!’

  She closed her eyes, remembering. ‘I saw a twin fork of sea – a spit of land sharp as a spear-point surrounded by forest. And a hill – yes, a hill – bald as your father’s head, rising to the south.’

  Ringast stared at her wide-eyed, then fell back on his haunches. ‘The fjords of Bravik,’ he murmured in wonder. And then he nodded, the lines of his mouth hardening with resolve. ‘Bravik, then. So be it.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  ‘Bravik? You’re sure?’

  The voice was coarse. The speaker was Branni, a man whom Erlan had learned was the Wartooth’s eyes and ears. The man he trusted above all others, so Thrand had told him. He was tall, thin, bald as an egg, and possessor of the most unruly pair of eyebrows Erlan had ever seen – one of which was arched doubtfully at Ringast.

  Branni had arrived at Ringast’s camp the night before, mud-spattered and weary from his journey, which had taken him first to Dannerborg, where he had discovered Ringast had already moved his army north and east. He had then ridden onwards like the wind, another twenty leagues, until he had overtaken their motley host.

  ‘I’m sure,’ replied Ringast, palming his sweat-slicked brow. It was warm in his tent, but not excessively so. The Dane’s face was pallid. He looked ten years older than the fine-fettled prince who had approached the Tiding Mound at Uppsala in such splendour on Midsummer’s Eve. The air in his booth was musty with the furs serving as his bed, and through the tent flaps wafted the smell of churned-up mud and horse droppings. But there was another scent lacing the air – subtle, but which caught in the nostrils like the smell of rotten meat. Erlan wondered what the wound on the Danish prince’s chest really looked like under Lilla’s dressing.

  ‘Your wife’s dream, you say.’ There was no concealing the scepticism in Branni’s voice. ‘Has she a vala’s sight?’

  ‘It seems to me she has.’

  ‘Can you prove it?’

  ‘I believe her. That’s enough.’

  ‘Oh, you believe her. In that case, I’m brimming with confidence, my lord.’ Erlan wondered what part this man really played that he could speak to Ringast in such an insolent tone.

  ‘Damn you, Branni, I believe her. And that’s an end to it. Gods, you have no trouble believing my father’s dreams when it serves his bloody purpose.’

  ‘True.’ Branni’s wild brows furrowed. ‘But that’s a different thing. Your father is a friend of Odin and has been since the cradle. The All-Father has told him much down the ages that has been shown true.’

  ‘Who’s to say Odin is not friend to my wife also?’

  A deep growl rumbled in Branni’s throat as he chewed this over. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s say she’s right then. And these two forces she has seen will join at the Braviken fjord. Then the sea-borne host can be none but Starkad’s, and we know he has three thousand spears. That means your army here could be outnumbered two to one, at least, when he joins with Sigurd’s force.’

  ‘All the more reason my father must hurry.’

  ‘He planned to set sail with his full host at dawn yesterday.’

  ‘If Sigurd’s army are already in the Kolmark,’ said Thrand, ‘they could reach the Braviken fjord in two days. Maybe even by nightfall tomorrow.’

  ‘Father’s fleet should be well at sea by now,’ said Ringast. ‘Which means he’ll have reached somewhere—’

  ‘Just south of the Gotland straits,�
�� offered Branni.

  ‘It’ll take them two and a half days to reach Bravik, so long as the wind doesn’t turn against them.’

  ‘But the old man still thinks he’s coming to Dannerborg,’ pointed out Thrand, stooping to refill his cup from the ale-bucket.

  ‘Hmm. Thrand’s right. He’ll land too far south. Then he’ll never march north in time to help us stop them at Bravik.’

  The tent fell silent for a while.

  ‘We must send him another message,’ Ringast said at length. He looked at Branni. ‘Will you go? If you leave at once you can intercept him. I’ll give you my swiftest vessel.’

  ‘I’m sure you shall,’ smiled Branni faintly. ‘And if I reach him, what would you have me say?’

  ‘Tell him to sail further north, to the fjord at Slätbaken. From there it’s less than three leagues to Bravik by land.’

  ‘And where, pray, shall I tell him to meet you?’

  Ringast knuckled the hook of his nose. ‘There’s a low ridge that rises along the southern edge of the Bravik plains. I know that ground. We can stop them there.’

  ‘They could be ten thousand to our five, brother,’ Thrand said.

  ‘I know that. If Father can reach that ridge by dawn the day after tomorrow, then we’ll make a stand. If he can join us, if we can concentrate our forces,’ Ringast looked earnestly from face to face, ‘then they’ll never get off that plain.’ The grit in his voice gave Erlan some confidence. The grim pallor in the prince’s cheeks, less so.

  ‘What if he doesn’t reach us by then?’ Erlan said.

  ‘Then they’ll cut a bloody swathe through this land like a scythe through barley.’

  Thrand suddenly laughed and gave his thigh a thunderous slap. ‘With or without Father, we’ll stop them on the plain. Oh, we’ll give them a merry time of it, brother! Never fear!’

  ‘I should be away,’ Branni said, rising wearily to his feet, indifferent to the younger prince’s swagger. He bowed and made to leave, only to hesitate one last time. ‘Is there anything else I should tell your father?’