by Lucy Monroe
No, she said her pack was gone. That his father had killed them all.
As quick tempered as Bjorn could be, Haakon could not imagine his father doing these heinous acts. He knew the man had been a Viking, that he had battled and killed Chrechte, but a murderer of entire packs?
It did not fit with the kotrondmenskr he knew, the asmundr that had taught him so sternly to live by the ancient ways of their people.
Haakon forced the disturbing thoughts from his mind. His mate was not his mate and had made it clear she never would be. What his father had or had not done to her pack was not what he needed to concern himself with right now.
Haakon had Chrechte to save.
"Ja," the old Seer affirmed. "They are uffe, but that makes no difference to your responsibility to them."
"I never said it did." His father had admitted to living by a different code centuries before, but he'd taught Haakon that his role was guardian to all Chrechte.
Osmend nodded his grizzled head, his once red beard, now grey touching his chest when he did so. "That is as it should be. You are asmundr. Chosen by fate to protect all our people."
"So you said the day you touched my hand to the Paindeal Neart." The day he'd first shifted into the giant cat of prey with fangs longer than his human hand and sharper than any sword he'd ever owned.
"You need to get traveling if you are going to save the uffe."
"Traveling where?" Haakon demanded, doing nothing to stifle his irritation at the Seer's roundabout way of making a point.
"They are headed to the wrong side of our land."
"The township where no Chrechte live?" They were Norseman, just like Haakon's people, but none of the Chrechte had settled on the opposite coastline.
"Yes."
"They won't harm the uffe just for coming." The townspeople in both settlements answered to a priest and a bishop now. The way of the Viking was no longer their way.
Or so the humans claimed. They lived much as any man or woman on the mainland, or so his father always claimed.
"They are not Norsemen, but Scots, and strangers. I do not know the why of it, but my visions do not lie. You must meet that boat and stop the uffe from going to the other township."
"Then that is what I will do." Because unlike what his kamerat believed, powerful warrior might he might be, Haakon valued all life, Chrechte most of all.
#
Neilina settled Dìonach into the center of the boat, nodding to herself as the animal's weight gave the craft necessary ballast for stability. She and Freya could make this journey. They had no choice.
Her dreams said that the safety of the Balmoral clan and its allies depended on her doing so.
Freya stepped gingerly into the boat. "I still think this is mad."
"Your opinion has been noted. Would you have me ignore the plight of the Chrechte who need my protection because reaching them will be dangerous?"
"Nay. You did not ignore my plight despite the numbers being overwhelmingly against you in the fight."
"And still I won."
"Well, you are conriocht."
"And they were treacherous human males, blinded by their terrible lusts."
"There is that."
"I fought and won that battle, taking you away from the village which had not taken your protection seriously since your parents’ death. I will fight the battle against the sea if need be."
Freya smiled, her face young and carefree for that moment. "If anyone can fight against the sea and win, it is you."
***
Haakon rode his large black stallion, bred for the colder climes of his homeland.
Though he was not sure Groenland could boast the warmer summers it once had. The land of the Danes would have to be cold indeed to be considered more frigid. He would not know, never having been anywhere but the place of his birth.
But he knew the land he and his stallion traversed as well as the four corners of the longhouse in which he lived. He would reach the nearest beach landing spot to the other Norse township tomorrow before the sun was high in the sky. According to the Seer, that would get him there in time to intercept the Scottish uffe.
What had brought the other Chrechte to Groenland? Why were they in danger if they made it to the village?
Not for the first time, Haakon contemplated the separation of the Chrechte races and what had caused it to happen so many centuries before. Even his father hadn't been entirely clear on the why, just that there were other Chrechte and ancient wisdom said they should not seek them out. But why?
Fate was sending Haakon to the aid of uffe now. Eventually, the wolves would realize they were dealing with another Chrechte. If they were any good at putting the pieces together. Haakon could hide his nature, but it was not a skill all the kotrondmenskr were taught. Not for centuries, as no Chrechte enemies lived near enough to make the skill desirable for any but the most elite warriors. For them, it was a rite of passage.
Had Haakon not been able to hide his nature, he would not have been given his second chance at the Paindeal Neart and become asmundr.
Under the strict taskmaster of his father, Haakon had worked hard to master that skill and all that made a warrior strong and capable of protecting his people.
Being asmundr had been written by fate into Haakon's destiny since before his birth. His father had said so many times.
Haakon had felt the truth of Bjorn's words from an early age though. So strongly that he never balked at the rigorous training.
He camped that night, rolled in his furs, beside his horse on the ground, the stallion sleeping more peacefully than the beast within Haakon. It was not the cold that kept him restless, though the near freezing summer night temperatures would have kept him awake if he were human.
He was not, and his sabeltann nature kept him warm. He had always been less affected by weather than even his brethren. Only his cousin, Einarr, who shared his soul with the giant tigers of the Rus, could withstand the cold as well as Haakon.
No, it was thoughts of who he was going to meet that kept him awake as the moon climbed in the sky.
Uffe. Men who shared their spirits with the wolf. Chrechte that the asmundr had never thought he would meet, much less be called on to protect.
Finally, he slept, but his dreams tried to take him to that other place. He could sense his mate pulling at him, her soul calling to his, but even in sleep his will was too strong, his denial too great. He'd had almost a decade to hone it. His beast might gnash at the restraint, but Haakon's mind refused that journey. And so then did his body.
And his beast? The sabeltann settled into sleep, even his Chrechte nature recognizing the repeated and final rejection he had been dealt by his kamerat.
***
Her heart filled with a trepidation she would never allow Freya to see; Neilina looked over the supplies she and her adopted daughter had loaded onto the boat in the hour before dawn.
The tide was right for sailing, but in a couple of hours, the water of her inlet would be too shallow for an easy launch.
They had packed enough food for the journey and a few days beyond. Their sleeping furs were stowed neatly, their weapons, as well, including plenty of arrows for each woman with their unique fletching. Everything they needed to care for the weapons resided in a small cask in the boat near where her bear lay, sleeping.
They had brought their most important possessions because there could be no guarantee they would make it back to their cave home. Though they had not brought everything, just the things both women would grieve if they did not return.
"It feels like we are saying goodbye to our home," Freya said, her voice hushed in the early morning quiet.
"We will be back," Neilina said more in hope than in certainty.
The pile of things in the boat gave lie to her words. She had a terrible feeling they would not be returning to her island, that she would never again know either the peace or the loneliness of her self-imposed exile.
The Faol nee
ded all their conriocht to fight the coming battles and not succumb to the will of the Fearghall to destroy them.
Freya gave her a look. "If you believed that, I wouldn't be going with you. You wouldn't risk it."
"It's a bigger risk to leave you here and chance a hunting party coming upon you."
"The hunters don't venture that deep into our forest. Our cave is unknown to them."
"But they come deeper into the woods every year."
"Did your mate bring you into the Chrechte spirit world last night?" Freya asked, clearly uninterested in debating the habits of the village men.
"He did not." Neilina had come to the magical place to have her eyes fall first upon the sword he'd planted in the ground and then onto the mist beyond. Mist so thick she could not see through or beyond it.
Something cold had settled in her chest at that sight, something that had not dissipated with her warm porridge for breakfast. A cold that even now made Neilina draw her cloak more tightly around her.
"So, you are not denying he is your mate?"
Neilina shrugged. "What would be the point? You do not seem willing to believe me."
"You taught me to discern a lie from the truth."
Neilina sighed. "Perhaps I should have taken my own advice."
"What do you mean?"
Neilina just shook her head and indicated that Freya should step into the boat before Neilina used her conriocht strength to push it from its mooring.
She wasn't going to tell the girl about the sword, or the now impenetrable mist. Revealing that Haakon had finally given up on their mating would not change anything.
Not that she wanted anything changed. She was content as things were.
If her wolf howled in protest, Neilina pretended not to hear.
CHAPTER THREE
H
aakon rose as the sun turned the sky shades of pink, yellow and orange. He'd slept deeply and felt no fatigue, despite the short number of hours spent somnolent.
Breaking his fast with dried elk and the grainy bread his aunt had provide for the journey, Haakon washed it down with water from his holding skin. After, he tended to his horse and then was on his way again. He rode at a steady pace, pushing the battle trained stallion, but not more than the animal could safely withstand. It would do Haakon no good to exhaust his horse.
He arrived at the coastline the Seer had described to him mid-morning, more shocked than he should be by the boat being dragged up onto the rocky beach some distance away. He'd never known Osmend to be wrong in his visions, but in this case, Haakon had doubted.
Men in three different colored plaids, that marked them as Scots, pulled the boat ashore, doing a fair job of making sure it would not float away on the next tide. So, not only Faol, but from the land of the Gael as well.
Riding his horse forward, Haakon was unsurprised when the men all turned to watch him arrive long before he was in normal hearing distance. He concentrated on suppressing the scent of his own Chrechte nature and hailed the men in Gaelic, a language, like English and that of the Franks, his father had taught him, insisting on fluency.
"Well met, travelers. What brings you to Groenland?"
A man came forward, only an inch, or so shorter than Haakon's six and a half feet, the Faol had dark hair, eyes the color of good, aged whiskey, and a sword that would please a Viking. "I am Maon. We are here, looking for our cousins."
Haakon cocked his head to one side, giving the man in the yellow, black and red plaid along with his companions, a steady look. "You do not have the look of any in my township, or the one nearest this landing point."
It was a good story if they were here to find the Paindeal though. There were many settlements in Scotland established by the Norse. The idea these men might have distant family among the Norse of the Groenland was not so hard to accept.
Maon shrugged. "You said there is a township near here? We will start there, looking for our family."
"It is not such a friendly place. You should come first to my township. You will be welcomed, though you are not from the Norse."
"Is that nearby as well?" one of the men wearing a blue, yellow and green plaid asked.
"It is a fair walk. It took me a day and a half of riding." Haakon realized that convincing them not to go to the other township without admitting his nature and that a Seer was directing him might not be possible.
He'd already admitted there were none in his village that had the look of them.
"You must be on your way to this other village then. We'll travel with you, if you don't mind." Maon spoke to Haakon, but directed the Faol who had travelled with him to their tasks with signals from his hands.
The men's discipline impressed Haakon, but he needed to get a better sense of their intentions before he would be ready to reveal his nature to these strangers. Though he'd known what they were, he'd noticed that they kept their nature hidden from him. Was it because they were generally cautious, or for other, more nefarious reasons?
He would no doubt have to reveal his Chrechte nature if he wanted to protect them as was his duty. Once his beast was settled.
Right now, it prowled around inside him, agitated at having a group of powerful Chrechte so close to him.
He watched them unload the boat in silence before admitting, "I am not going to the township."
Maon stopped directing his men and gave Haakon a penetrating look. "You've not given your name, Norseman."
"I am called Haakon." He was also called asmundr and the nickname his cousin had saddled him with, Hand of Thor, for his prowess in battle and with the sword. "Nephew to the jarl of my area."
"And you are not from this town, but you have travelled more than a day to reach this shore. Why?" Maon frowned. "If you don't mind me asking." Though his tone and expression said very clearly he didn't really care if Haakon minded, or not. "And how is it that you speak our tongue so smoothly?"
Haakon had to respect a man who would stand up so easily to him. Even those ignorant of his nature walked a wide path around him because of his size. His speed and strength only enhanced the attitude of caution he was usually met with.
He put his hand out to Maon. One of Haakon's Chrechte gifts was the ability to read the soul of a man when their palms pressed. He could not read minds, or sense emotion any better than the next Chrechte, but he knew if a man, or woman, had a black soul, a pure soul, or something in between, as most did.
"Wait!" the man who had spoken before shouted as Maon went to take Haakon's hand.
Maon looked at the soldier. "Why?"
The man did not answer but walked up to Haakon. "I am Artair, grandson of the Seer of the Balmoral pack." The others gasped, or glared, when the young man used pack instead of clan, but one soldier, who wore the same plaid, sent burning coals toward Haakon with his gaze. The brown-haired man waved the others off and met Haakon's gaze. "I have seen you in my dreams."
"I've been dreamt about by the women of my village, but not the men." Haakon made the joke even as he questioned in his own mind what the young soldier had dreamed.
His skin now awash with color, nevertheless, the younger man took a step forward, so he stood only inches from Haakon. "I am Artair. You are protector of your people. I am not, though I am Chrechte and charged to protect my pack as all members are. Even so, you and I have much in common."
Haakon narrowed his eyes at Artair. "What?"
"Both our sacred mates deny us."
Haakon felt the weight of Thor's hammer slamming into his chest. "You cannot know this."
"I have dreamt and while I am no Seer, my grandda has taught me how to tell when a dream is prophetic and when it is nothing more than mists in the brain burned away with morning's first light."
"Where is your sacred mate?" Haakon asked, more to give himself time to digest the claims of the young Balmoral soldier.
Artair cast his gaze to another man, the one whose glare grew only more furious the longer Haakon and Artair spoke.
"H
e is here with you."
"He is my best friend."
"But he has denied the pull between mates."
"Aye."
"I am sorry." Haakon knew firsthand the pain of that situation, not that he'd ever admit to such a thing.
Artair shrugged. "We cannot change the heart of another."
"Or their mind when it is set against us," Haakon agreed, thinking of his own Norse-hating mate.
"You've dreamed of this man?" Maon asked, his tone suspicious. "You say he's a protector of his people. What does that mean exactly?"
Haakon allowed his big cat's nature to come to the fore and watched as the wolves reacted with varying degrees of unease. All but Maon. His grin split his face. "You are Paindeal. We have found you."
"You have found a Paindeal. Artair speaks true when he says I am protector, but not only of my people. I protect any Chrechte as any guardian should."
"You're a Griffin?" one of the soldiers wearing a plaid in blue and green with black stripes asked with undisguised awe.
Did these Chrechte not know anything about their people's protectors? "A Griffin can only come about if the Paindeal and the Éan mate, then both their sacred stones must choose her, or him."
"Females can be guardians?" Maon asked with shock.
"Do you have no female conriocht among you?"
Maon blanched. "You know about the conriocht?"
Haakon turned and began heading toward a place up the beach they could arrange their packs and eat a meal before they headed toward his uncle's territory. "More than you know about the protectors from our race it would seem."
They followed him as he'd assumed they would.
The young soldier who had seemed to be so awed by Haakon's nature asked, "What are you if not a Griffin?"
Haakon looked back at them over his shoulder. "One day perhaps we will hunt together and you will see for yourself."
Maon nodded when the younger soldier merely looked on in dumbfounded silence. "Fair enough. Did your dreams send you here to us?"
"No. The visions of our Seer." Haakon led his horse to a stream he knew was fresh water, near where the animal could graze, before turning back to the men. "He claims that if you go to the nearby township, some, or all of you will die."