This reduced his bride to desperate cries. With his strong legs locked around hers, she could only tap her toes on the stone floor. Held fast, she could not do a single thing to distract herself from the forge Gunnar was lighting on her bottom. He moved from cheek to cheek firmly swatting her over and over. He paused for a moment to rub her bottom. Elin hoped he would decide that she had been punished adequately, but she was not hopeful. Her crying subsided during the pause. He reached for something and after a moment of bated breath, Elin felt something sear across her upturned, vulnerable bottom. She let out a frantic cry and did her best to get away from him.
He continued to lash her while she bawled. Her kicking only served to expose her tender inner thighs to the stinging slap of the implement he was punishing her with. It thudded against her scarlet cheeks leaving a fearful sting in its wake. Gunner’s only response to her struggling was to hold her tighter and spank her harder.
“You deserve every bit of this,” he said firmly. “I can’t believe that you need to be reminded not to disobey me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she wailed plaintively.
“But you did.”
He began to spank her slowly and deliberately, laying each swat over the previous one. Pulling her naked body closer to him, lifted her bottom up even higher. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
He was not wrong. She had promised not to tell anyone and she had. This knowledge took the fight right out of her and she found herself sobbing limply over his leg while he slowly continued her chastisement. Elin felt herself yield, a seismic shift within her meant that she would take her punishment as deserved. This might have stopped her struggling, but it meant she cried even harder.
Gunnar shifted her so that he was cradling her on his lap. He allowed her to cry herself out, while he gently stroked her hair. “I will never disobey you again,”she promised.
He lay gentle kisses on her brow. “Alright, it’s all alright,” he whispered. There was no time for him to comfort her more. He helped her to her shaking legs and gently dressed her. Her shift had stains from the filthy floor. Gunner went brush the marks off and Elin gasped as his hand slapped her backside. She hastily gathered up her overdress and pinned it at her shoulders. “What was that you spanked me with?”
He held up an empty leather scabbard, long enough for a sword.
“That thing stung like a son of a bitch,”she said ruefully.
“I know,” he said in a tone altogether differently than hers.
“And,”he continued,”It’s light, so it stings, but you won’t end up really bruised.”
Elin thought he was dead wrong, certain she would be black and blue from her knees to hips.”I promise,” he said. His wife was thoroughly, if temporarily uninclined to roll her eyes at him. She gave a little gasp when he folded it and put it in the pocket of his overcoat.
They walked hand in hand to the top of the wall where their wagon was waiting. Everyone was waiting for them. Elin was too embarrassed to make eye contact with anyone and as quickly as she could she clamored into the wagon.
Chapter 40
As soon as they are safely in, the caravan took off. Elin’s embarrassment faded as her strong husband gathered her in his arms and tenderly made love to her before they fell asleep tangled together.
The wagon pulled to a stop within the courtyard of Pinnacle Keep. Disembarking, Elin noticed three women standing in the distance. She wasn’t sure who they were or why on earth they would be standing out on a mountain. When she asked Gunnar about them, he just looked confused. “Sometimes the ice does funny things to your eyes,”he said. Elin stood on tiptoe and craned her neck trying to get a better view. There they were, perhaps they were all women of the same family. Elin could make out one that was quite young, a child on the cusp of womanhood. She wore a frock of soft green. The woman next to her was perhaps her older sister, her belly swelled expectantly under her vibrant green dress. Standing next to them was an ancient woman, her green dress was so dark it seemed almost black. Elin focused her eyes on them only to see them fade out of sight. Perhaps her husband was right, the ice was doing funny things to her eyes.
Hanne, the dame of Pinnacle Keep, who had been traveling with the caravan, was astonished. “The torches are not lit,” she said.
“It is morning,” Elin offered.
“Those torches never go out. Something is very wrong“ Hanne said firmly. Her concerns were amplified when she discovered that the door was locked. She lifted the heavy knocker and they all stood for a moment while the sound echoed around them. A knight hurried to greet them, “Welcome home dame, “he said with a bow. “You find us gobsmacked, I’m afraid.”
Armund ducked around the man who opened the doors and disappeared up some winding stairs before saying anything.
The knight gestured for the rest of them to follow him. Hurrying along a dim corridor, he explained, “We awoke this morning to find that no fires would stay lit.”
Elin looked around, the place didn’t seem full of drafts strong enough to blow out a fire in a hearth. Gunnar dropped a kiss on the top of Elin’s head ”You stay with Dame Hanne,”he whispered. “I’m going to find the forge.”
Their guide continued, “We can’t get any of them relit, no candles, no fires, no lanterns. The knights are at their battlestations, and everyone else has been sequestered to the innermost room. It’s dark, but it is still reasonably warm.” They turned another corner, and Elin dashed away from the group. She had no earthly idea how to get to Armund’s study, but she was compelled to find him.
She pressed a hand on the stone steps. Awkwardly she said, “I am Elin, the healer, I want to help. Please help me find Armund.” Nothing. She felt ridiculous, and now she didn’t know how to find the group she had absconded from. The step she was standing on began to narrow. Looking down with horror she saw that all of the steps behind her were vanishing. She had no choice but to hop up to the next level. The stairs continued to insist that she move upwards. All the stairs above her had widened. She tentatively took a step upward, and then another one. As she hurried up the stairs, the o She began to run up the stairs. Only when she had reached the top of the staircase did all of the stairs reappear and settle into their former state.
She could hear voices and ran towards them until she found an open door. Armund was sitting at a table, a woman sat beside him, and they had several scrolls open. Armund didn’t glance up, “Vera, this is the bride I told you about.” Vera was an elderly woman with spectacles down low on her nose, “Hello, dear,” she said, also not looking up.
“Elin, this is my wife, she used to be a nun,” the old scholar said casually.
Vera gave a snort,” He means a spy who pretended to be a nun,” she said pertly.
“Oh,” said Elin. She could think of nothing else to say to the bewildering chit chat in the midst of a crisis. Neither Vera or Armund seemed to even remember she was standing there as they pored over manuscripts.
With the older couple deeply absorbed in whatever they were studying, Elin looked around, fascinated by some of the objects she noticed in the room. A tall glass canister filled with some sort of lavender liquid was boiling, although she could see no heat source. As the bubbles rose up, they transformed into perfectly round tiny balls of ice and overflowed out of the canister
It apparently had been happening for some time, as the shelf was covered with mounds of the little ice spheres and a continuous stream rolled onto the floor. Cavorting in the hills of ice were two long, small, white-furred animals. Apparently, Armund was aware that she was present because although he didn't look up from his scrolls, he said: “Those are ferrets, but those are the dumbest two, do not be comforted by their playfulness.”
Unsure how to respond to that, Elin blurted, “There are more?”
Armund lowered the scroll, “Of course, but the smart ones have all burrowed as deep as they can.”
Elin looked carefully at the floor for any burrows, not wanting to inadve
rtently put a foot in one.
“Have you found what kind of spell it is?” she asked, deciding it was time to address the situation at hand.
“It’s your basic Douse-an extinguishing spell, but I’ve never known the wall to be so susceptible to spells.”
“Do you have a spell to light a fire? Gunnar needs a forge, and it will only get colder in here.”
“No.”
She had not expected that. His answer left her sadly deflated and very afraid. A firm step outside the door made Elin turn her head just in time to see a tall, muscular man stride in. A fearsome eye peered from his tunic.
Armund finally put his scroll down and addressed the tall man, “We both know that you are the answer.”
“There has to be another way. I don't even know if I can. I didn’t do it on purpose before.”
“Well, the situation is every bit as dire, think on your children freezing to death.” The warrior with the dragon tattoo crossed his arms furiously.
Vera stood on her chair to reach for a volume from a very high shelf, “Elin, this is Jonis, the Paladin here. You’ve heard of him as the Gilded Dragon.”
Elin gave an odd little curtsy, not sure how one greeted the most fearsome warrior of her age.
Jonis continued to argue with Armund, but Elin found it impossible to follow their conversation. The voices reverberated around her skull and made her ears pound.
Finally, The incessant babbling around her compelled Elin to interrupt the mage and the dragon “Do your ferrets speak? Because I can totally hear them burrowing and talking to each other.”
Armund looked flummoxed, “No, my dear, they do not speak,” The room was suddenly full of the chattering of ten frantic ferrets who had practically erupted out of a small hole in the corner.
“Something is digging under the wall,” she said.
“Do you hear the screaming like you did before?” Vera asked,leading Elin to a chair.
“No, they are encouraging each other, I only sort of hear them, I might feel them, it’s hard to describe.”
“Encouraging each other to do what?” asked Armund.
“Keep going, that they can make it. They won’t leave anyone behind if any of them dig their way out they will help the others.”
Vera glanced at her husband sharply, “What if Hoor has been casting spells on the wall all along, and something else has weakened it enough that he could was able one work?”
“It’s possible,” Armund said slowly, “Although I don’t know who would help him.”
“What if they aren’t trying to help him, but inadvertently are?” suggested Vera.
Elin had a sudden revelation, “Where does Hoor keep the forsaken?”
Armund shook his head, “No one knows for sure.”
Elin was certain.
“I do- they are in the ice behind this fortress, but they are finding their way out.”
Armund gave a start and hurried to some instruments on a shelf. He withdrew a delicate copper top. With agility that defied his age, he dropped to his belly and set the top on the stone floor. As soon as he removed his hand, it began to spin. It spun in what appeared to be random swirls across the floor. It suddenly stilled and then began to shimmy back and forth.
“What is that?”
“It is an isometric, it measures any movement of the ground under us.” He leaped up and flung open a cabinet. He withdrew what looked like a small clock. Closing his eyes, Armund whispered to it, and the hands began to spin. After going around and around several times, the hands both landed on number 5.
“What is that?”
“It’s a magimatt, it measures how much magic is coursing through the wall.”
“Is five high?”
“Higher than I have ever seen.”
Opening a drawer, the elderly knight withdrew an angled piece of metal. While he pressed the metal between the floorboards and a wall, Elin followed him closely. “What is that?”
Armund straightened up, “It’s a carpenter's square. It tells me that the walls and floor have shifted considerably.”
“Come,” he ordered and began dashing up the curving staircase.
Chapter 41
As they stood on the wide open, frigid top of the fortress, Armund turned to Jonis. “Now, do it out here, but do it.”
Jonis shook his head.
Armund doggedly continued, “No spell that I’ve ever heard of can confound dragon fire.”
“We don’t have a dragon,” the Paladin responded. “We have me, a knight, a man, just a man who once somehow transformed.”
“Son, “the elderly knight gently began.
“Do not call me son, I am a Paladin, a knight, a warrior, do you not think that if I knew how to transform that I would have?” The man was furious Elin felt that she could see the eyes of his dragon tattoo boring through his tunic.
“Jonis, my captain, my friend, the wall chose you.”
“The wall made a mistake.”
Elin was trying to follow the debate between the men, but the shrill voices in her skull made it difficult. They were reaching a crescendo, and it made it impossible for her to concentrate.
Elin tried to reach the voices, “Can anyone hear you but me?” she asked.
She did not receive an answer.
Armund continued to press the issue with the Paladin,
“When you transformed before, what were you thinking?”
“That my Hanne and the children would be tortured to death, and then everything fell away, and I was flying.”
The elderly mage crossed his arms sternly in front of himself.“Perhaps you need to remember that freezing to death in the dark, is a kind of torture.”
“Don’t you think I’ve been doing that?” Jonis roared. “I don’t know how, or I would.”
Elin was drawn to the edge of the roof, she braced herself against having to fight jumping off. The forsaken were not anguished this time, and she felt no desire to harm herself.
“The wall belongs to Thor, we must pray for him to intervene,” offered Vera. She reached for Armund’s hand. Elin was struck by the love and bravery the older woman showed. She was sad that the couple had only found each other so late in their lives. Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed continually across the darkened skies. In the distance, Elin could almost see something lumbering towards the wall. The lightning was powerful enough to light the ground beneath it. As the wind blew the snow on the north side of the wall shifted. “Those are graves,” she whispered. A long line of them, not newly dug, lay bare as the drifts scattered. There were man-sized graves at one end, and closest to the fortress, four small child-sized graves.
Armund put a hand on Jonis’s shoulder, “Do you see those? Hoor has been planning this a long time, which of your children do you think they will bury first?”
The roar shook the stones. Armund anticipated the transformation and dragged Elin to the far corner. She watched in amazement as Jonis hovered in midair, his hands twisting into talons. As he swayed in the frozen air, the sinuous curve of a dragon’s spine took shape. The dragon took up much of the roof, but he made no move to attack either Armund or Elin. Throwing his head back the magnificent indigo dragon breathed out a torrent of flames. Elin looked around for some wood. With Armund’s help, she clamored up and removed a blackened and cold torch from its holder. After lighting their torches, the dragon lifted itself and on mighty wings flew towards the approaching enemies. Jonis blew fire, and it illuminated the ground underneath him. A cry went up, frost imps had been spotted. An army of them, moving effortlessly through the icy terrain, marched towards the swordless keep.
The three of them ran down the stairs. “The forge is that way,” Armund said pointing towards the large main door.”We’ll get the others.”
The dragon fire remained lit as she ran along. She wasn’t sure why the forge wasn’t hidden in the cellar. Elin guessed that either they had not had time to prepare a hidden forge, so secrecy no longer mattered. She ran
out of the fortress and and looked around frantically. She could see Gunanr’s footsteps along the top of the wall, but she knew she would never make it there in time. There were other marks in the snow and she realized who they belonged to.
“Hako!” She cried. The magnificent animal came galloping around the corner and slid too his knees in front if her. She had barely gotten on to him when he took off again. She clutched his hackles with one hand and held on with her thighs as tightly as she could. They raced along the wall. When they reached the door that led to the forge, Elin threw herself off of Hako. The door opened for her suddenly and she descended the stairs and lit the forge. The windows flew open and the cold wind fed the flames.
Elin took her place next to Gunnar. He was not pleased with this, “ Go to the cellar."
"Everyone is doing all they can, and I am going to help you." he was displeased, but the stubborn tilt of her chin seemed to convince him arguing was for naught. He returned to his magnificent hammering, turning steel into proper blades. She was not strong enough to hammer the swords, so she followed Gunnar’s instructions and dipped them into the water, the pearls that Ran had given left each sword covered with a film of salt as they emerged from their final bath. As soon as one sword was finished, it was handed, still hot to the women who carried them to their soldiers on the battlements. Elin craned her neck to see out the tall window in the forge. The imps were smaller than men, with large heads and grotesquely long arms. They carried only clubs, but there were thousands of them, as far as the eye could see. Gunnar was left alone in the forge as every available soldier moved to the roof. The Sisters of the Moon joined them. People scurried back and forth bringing every arrow they could find. Elin took her place next to Gunnar. He was not pleased with this, “ Go to the cellar."The arrows were not enough to stave off the attackers. Wave after wave of them marched forward.
"Go, Go find the cellar," Gunnar commanded. Elin started to argue, but Gunnar took hold of her arm and led her to the stairs.
“Go down these stairs, there is an underground corridor that will get you to the main keep.
Her Gilded Firebird: Book Three in the Norse Warriors series Page 18