Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Flokki sat on the ice and began to dry his hair with the hem of his tunic. “Rough,” he said. “And a waste of time. Called back by these damned humans, just when I’d a mind to travel again, and was enjoying the swim. But the spring storms are turgid this year, it seems. And home is home, after all.”

  “Then welcome home,” smiled Thoddun. “You’ve been receiving my messages, and know the situation here. I’ll wait until our numbers increase before killing the rest of the humans. You can rest here in the lower levels. I’ve destroyed the dungeons, and the sea now sweeps in beyond the foundations. There’s now space there for all of you, Shifted or otherwise, as you each wish. You’ll find a few of your friends in the inner cave, with the rest of those I originally left here in the boats. Help get the poor bastards some food, and look after them till I come again. I’ll keep in touch.”

  “And him?” Flokki jerked his head towards Asved.

  “I’ll deal with him,” smiled Thoddun.

  The berg was now crowded. Figures, rubbing themselves, hands brisk across dripping clothes, materialising also from the far side, appearing suddenly around the white shining curves. The berg swung a little, stable on its vast plinth but rocking with the weight of busy men, then dipping and rising with the new surging tide. Asved clung to a small cold pinnacle, half on his knees, half collapsed. He stared wildly, disbelieving.

  “So you were right to believe in monsters.” Thoddun turned back to him. “But you will be killing none of us. It is time for you to go.”

  “Go?” Asved stuttered, eyes frantic. “You’ll take me back?”

  “Not back to shore,” Thoddun said. “But I shall take you back down.”

  Beyond the berg the water was seething. With no more room to climb the ice, the vast mass of smooth elongated bodies heaved up to see what was happening. The sky had lightened and soft blues peeped through the drifting cloud above, the long night now short day again with the sun higher than it had risen each day before. The light was warming and created soft green shadows across the crowded waters. A jostle of bubbles and sloshing spray, tidal trickles of froth and the energetic breathing of whales, dolphin, orca and shark waited eagerly for Thoddun’s orders. He stood tall again, and before Asved’s terrified eyes, began to Shift.

  Before he had completed the Shift, half man half beast, the orca’s teeth lunged and grabbed Asved, flinging him high, a broken spinning splinter, tossed into the air before plunging directly into the icy waves. Fully immersed and thrust deeper, the pressure of the water against him and the freeze of the iceberg’s great drowned bulk grinding like a thunderous storm, smashed against his ears. Asved gulped, holding desperately to his breath. The things were all around him. He saw their eyes underwater, strangely distorted and even more monstrous than they had seemed on land. Appearing huge from the murky gloom, one took his arm. At first he felt little pain, only a chilling numbness, and saw the sudden gush of blood. The sea became pink. Something else grabbed his leg and this time he felt the agony as it was torn from him, bitten through the knee. Something else hurtled beneath him, forcing him up and out of the water again, with a splash and a chance to breathe, then back and the creatures moved for him to drop in their midst’s, the weight of his fall carrying him deeper.

  Then he saw the beast which had brought him to this place and now he knew who it was. Larger than all the others, its mouth reached for him. The freezing waters churned between bodies weaving like giant eels around him. Asved’s consciousness faded, but merged back, death slowly overpowering all remaining awareness. He was deafened, held fast but struggling to survive, one remaining thread of life clasping him to the breath in his leaking lungs. The seas were red, billowing with his own blood, striped with the furious pain of ragged torn flesh at knee and elbow.

  Then the other creatures parted, letting the greater beast through. Its teeth sliced Asved half across the pelvis before tossing him aside. He hung limp, suspended in the water’s freeze. He saw the creatures coming for him again, a hundred mouths, a thousand teeth, and the eager hungry eyes of the monsters he’d once dreamed of killing. They shared his body between them

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The orca swam out beyond the shadows of the land and into the deepest ocean, spinning fast between the grinding underwater bergs to where the sea plunged into shelves of utter blackness with the sweet clean perfume of wildest freedom. He breached, hurtling up from the freeze into the balmy mildness, breathed the sparkling air, one great burst of breath, and down into the rushing waters once more. The sun was already ebbing slowly towards the horizon, its western surrender to early spring, but the darkness would not yet consume the world. The seeping twilight of the sinking sun washed the sky in jade and held back the night. The great whale swam on south.

  The waters were not empty. Each ripple dithered with life. Krill and plankton enriched smell and touch, surrounding him with vibration and temptation. But he did not hunt. Something else called him.

  As he swam he sent messages, instructing each captain. From each he received answers. The blizzard had passed but he ordered Kjeld and Halfdan to wait. They must not yet approach the castle. They must pass at least one more restless night in the cave where they sheltered. It was close to him now, and he expected to be there before night permitted the stars. His mind spoke to Safn and the sky army. He delayed them also, commanding them to wait. “Strengthen your force after the storm,” he said. “Rest, hunt and play. I shan’t ask you to wait long.”

  He found Karr and the troops using the underground tunnels. “Come up into the cave of the frozen lake,” he told Karr. “Bring your men and your prisoners. I will be already there.”

  And finally, the voices weak and still distant, he made his first direct contact with Lodver and the great overland army. “How many days?” he asked.

  “At this pace, two more dawns at least,” Lodver answered. “But with greater discipline, we might arrive sooner.”

  “I need you,” Thoddun said. “Before the second dawn I want you at the cave of the frozen lake. If any of the bears trail behind, leave them. Bring the main force and travel fast.”

  Thoddun continued to direct the scouting eagles, and learned that Ogot and his small human army remained a week away, failing in the last blizzards. Though men of the north were acclimatized to freezing winds and the deep snows, human wars were always conducted in summer. Warriors returned home in autumn to help bring in the harvests and bed their wives, light the winter fires and snooze out the dark cold until late spring loosened the moorings. No one made war in winter when there were no crops or loose cattle for tramping armies to forage and steal, and little remained to hunt. Troops marching in winter risked starvation, or carried the additional weight of supplies with them, leaving a trail of broken sleds. Sudden storms caused delays and spoiled any surprise attack. Older men weakened and died on the ice. Had they not been urged forwards by the last of Mandegga’s jarls, most would have turned away. Ogot already regretted his courage.

  The orca swam on and before the moon tipped the waters silver around him, he turned towards the pale iced shore and the distant caves. It was his woman’s thoughts he heard stronger than any other. She was thinking of him. It was, he thought, a little rueful, an invasion of her thoughts, as embarrassing to her as he found delightful. But he had always practised the art of spying. Every skald, every poet, minstrel, troubadour and bard, while recreating history and playing to the great courts of the north, spied for some other court, and also for himself. The transanima were the greatest spies of all. Men’s thoughts lay as clear and wide open as the summer sky, though less innocent, floating on the feeble surface of their pallid minds, impossible not to read.

  Skarga was dreaming of his arms around her. She imagined herself back in the weltering warmth of the bed they shared, his body naked, hers snuggled close. Now only the boy Egil was curled beside her. She had turned her back on him, enclosing herself into a private darkness. Kjeld was snoring. His flattened nostrils shivered wi
th bristles, the roars shuddering up into the echoes of the roof. Halfdan remained sleepless, itching with the desire to Shift. Thoddun smiled an orca smile and ignored him, turning again to Skarga’s dreams. Her dreaming was wistful and awake, for she did not sleep either. She was thinking of kisses and his legs forced between her own, his hands hot on her breasts and his tongue forced between her teeth.

  When Thoddun came to the first pack ice, he twisted and beached, Shifting quickly back to man. Then, because he was slippery wet and his hair soaked, he Shifted again, so fast that the man’s body breathed only once before becoming the bear. The bear shrugged off the freezing water and began to run. The energy of his own muscles warmed and dried him, a satisfaction of enormous exhilaration. He loved the wind against his face and the ice hard beneath his paws. The quick double Shift took strength, but left him stronger. He came to the opening of the cave, with its tantalising smells of the people within, the blazing fire Kjeld had built, and the food they had eaten. Skarga’s scent was the strongest to him, combining both humanity and intimacy, the vulnerability of his natural prey and the absolute vibrancy of his chosen mate. He smelled her restless wanting, the heightened state of her body, the coursing of her blood and the drifting warmth of her breath.

  Thoddun paused in the dark wind-whine beyond the rocky entrance. Within the cave, Halfdan had sensed him and rose but Thoddun called at once, telling him to rest. At once Thoddun Shifted back to man. He entered the cave’s shadows, coming so quietly that Skarga knew nothing until his arms were around her. The dogs knew him and did not stir, nor did Kjeld, and Halfdan was ordered to silence. Egil muttered and moved away in his sleep. Skarga jumped, startled, momentarily frightened. “Hush,” Thoddun whispered to her ear, his hands brisk and warm, tightening her body to his. “Dream on, little calf, and I’ll follow your dreams and make them true.”

  She blinked, straining her eyes in the dancing black and scarlet shadows of the firelight behind her. “Are you real? How did you get here?” she whispered. “Am I dreaming you?”

  He laughed as she curled to him. “Sleep snug, my love, and let me explore what I’ve been missing.” He kissed her, his tongue parting her teeth and forcing his own breath into her throat, tasting her lips and mouth. “Is that a dream?” he murmured, “I wish I could open my thoughts to you, as I feel yours. I can enter you in so many different ways. I need to find a way of bringing you into me.”

  “I’ve missed you so much.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt. The cloth was very slightly damp, moist with his sweat and the chilly scent of sea and snow.

  “Six days. And none of them good days.” His hands moved quickly under the hems of her tunic and shift, lifting the way beneath. His own bearskin cape covered them both like a clam shell, keeping them private. Egil, grumbling in his dreams, rolled closer to the fire. One of the dogs was whimpering, then quietened, reassured by Thoddun’s answering thought. Skarga’s hair was against his nose, her head tucked beneath his chin. “I like the amazing softness of you here. When I first held you, your belly was flat and hard like a warrior’s. Now it’s rounded and soft as eiderdown.”

  “Then you’ve fed me too well.”

  “It’s nicer this way.” He smoothed his hand across her, winding his fingers into the curls at her groin. “When I lie on top of you, your belly and breasts are the sweetest bed. There’s no more comfortable place in all the world.”

  Kjeld’s snoring turned to snort, a loud exhale before the vibrations again found rhythm. Disturbed, Egil hiccupped and half sat. “Shah,” whispered Skarga. “Everyone’s waking. They’ll hear.”

  Thoddun removed his hands slowly and chuckled. “What an aggravating little human you are,” he murmured to the top of her head. “I cross the barren wastes to find you, and yet still find myself rejected. You smell of desire. How can I sleep with that so tantalising under my nose?”

  “What’s happening?” demanded Egil suddenly. “Who’s there?” One of the younger dogs lifted its head, the others pricked their ears. The lead dog began to bark. Kjeld leaped up in one shuddering bound and Halfdan stretched his legs and sniggered.

  “Hel and troll’s breath,” said Thoddun. “You lot have as much sensitivity as a barrel load of eels. Remind me never to take any of you along when I’m hunting. You’d disturb even a spawning salmon. What happened to imagination and diplomacy?”

  Kjeld rumbled a little and scratched his chin. “Dreaming,” he muttered apologetically, though unsure what he was apologising for. “Oughta look after lady. Didn’t oughta slept.”

  Thoddun sighed. “Not at all, my friend, not at all. Go back to sleep now. I’ll build the fire up, and steal some of your stores. Anyone hungry?”

  Kjeld shook his head. “I’s cooking. You’s resting. Lord. Wounded. Tired.”

  “Are you wounded?” asked Skarga, sitting up while Kjeld cupped his hands over the fire and blew between his fingers. The flames soared again into crimson wings.

  Thoddun leaned back against the rock face, resting her head on his heartbeat. “A little.” He smiled. “You can’t see in these shadows, but it’s not improved my natural beauty. I’ve a few cuts and claw marks, and a bloody great hole in one knee. But the cold and the sea water’s cured most of it, and a bear has healing saliva. I don’t need anyone’s nursing. What I had in mind was a different sort of medicine. Seems I’ll have to curb my impatience.”

  Skarga demanded. “Who hurt you? Was it Grimr?”

  Thoddun shook his head. “Not directly. But I’ve met the boy you told me about. He’s transanima too of course, though far too young to Shift. I find him interesting.”

  Skarga was surprised. “Then he is Grimr’s son?”

  Thoddun paused. “I doubt it,” he said. “But I’ll tell you more about him after this business is over when I’ve the community back in peace and order. First, I want food. I’ve been swimming half the day and running the rest of it. So if Kjeld doesn’t hurry up, I’ll eat the meat raw.”

  Kjeld had known Thoddun to eat his meat raw on many occasions, but said nothing. Halfdan swore, wrapped himself in his cape, and turned his back. Egil was excited. “There’s another boy? What is he? Who is he? When do I get to meet him?”

  Skarga interrupted. “But you always meant to make war on Grimr. You said you meant to kill him. So isn’t it easier, now he’s come to you?”

  “He killed some of my men,” Thoddun said, accepting the wedges of hot venison Kjeld handed him, dripping grease and scorching his fingers. “And he’s left the stink of his channel’s corpse in my bed. There’s the smell of humanity throughout the castle, they’ve drunk my best wine and I’ve had to alter all my plans. I don’t mind adjusting and I don’t mind changing plans, but I’m damned if I’ll allow someone else to force me to it.”

  Skarga frowned. “Do humans smell that bad?”

  “Most of them,” Thoddun chuckled. “Don’t be offended. The smell of you is so appetising, it dragged me half way across the ocean.”

  He ate and called for more. Kjeld was contentedly domestic. Egil bubbled. “Can I kill Grimr? Will this boy be upset if I kill his father? Is Asved with them? And where’s Erik?”

  Thoddun groaned. “No. Irrelevant. He was. Now flying free, after being imprisoned in the dungeons with Brandr. No doubt he sheltered with the other birds during the blizzard. If he discovers where you are, he’ll probably turn up here and add to the rabble.”

  Erik arrived while everyone slept, an uneasy doze beside the crackle and spit of the fire and Kjeld’s renewed snoring. The dogs bounded up, barking frantically. The bird landed a little awkwardly in the snow outside the cave’s gape, kicking impatiently, snow owl talons scratching on the ice and a scatter of little feathers as the claws became boots. Then he stumbled inside and into Egil’s arms. Halfdan cursed again and pulled his cape over his head. Thoddun swore and tugged Skarga closer, thrusting his nose between her breasts and threatening the next person who annoyed him with disembowelment.

  The crescent m
oon completed its shallow arc across the black, unhindered by aura. As it swung beneath the horizon, the cave was already busy, the fire hot and huge again, break-fast grilling, noise mounting. Thoddun yawned and sent Halfdan out to Shift and break his own fast with the fish. Erik and Egil were gossiping and comparing tales of their heroism under duress, Kjeld heated meat and brewed porridge with sea salt and a little honey. Thoddun was sitting quietly with Skarga’s head on his shoulder, when Safn came marching in with the sky army behind him. Too many to enter the cave, there was a mighty twittering and cawing from outside, a bustle and jostle of birds landing and Shifting. Thoddun smiled and looked up, eyes bright crystal blue in the firelight. “So, we have begun,” he said.

  At half a day’s bear run across the snows, Grimr stood silently at the window of his bedchamber. It was a slim arrow slit axed roughly through the iced rock, a draught ridden groove to the outside threats of storm and stars. He gazed towards the mountains and the rising sun, the only direction the window allowed him. He watched the slow glide of an eagle, a dark line of spread wings against the dawn’s pale gleam.

  In the far corner of the room where the buttressed hearth protected his pallet from the draught, the boy slept. The hearth was empty and it was bitterly cold. The great bed and its strewn furs lay undisturbed. Grimr could not sleep. Ingmar had disappeared somewhere into the maze of castle passageways, and had not returned. Grimr missed the warmth and security of his favourite’s arms; a safe and pleasant comfort without the insidious spider’s threads of attachment, or the dread of love with its inevitable threat of vulnerability. He was a little worried to know he missed Ingmar in his bed. The man’s disappearance still disturbed him.

  And Asved had gone. He did not miss Asved. He disliked him. But he had sent the boy after Ingmar, and both had failed to reappear. Now two others, minor jarls sent to search the castle shadows, had not yet reported back. Then Grimr had marched to Thoddun’s chamber to complain and demand an explanation. But Thoddun had gone also, leaving a room well guarded. The only way out was a door impossible to use without being seen and stopped. But there was the waterfall. Thoddun channelled the sea eagle and the sea bear and the sea wolf. So he had Shifted, and gone through the waters.