Dolor and Shadow (26 page)

CHAPTER 35

Rune stirred on the forest floor. Daylight poured through trees, blinding him at first as he shifted and pushed himself up from the ground. Every inch of him ached and thoughts flooded back with his memories, colliding into a state of confusion.

The birds had returned to the forest. The angle of the sun’s light told him it was mid-day. Kallan was gone. Rune winced against the sharp pain that travelled up his back into his shoulders. A constant throb pulsed through the back of his head. He touched the well-formed knob and cringed, then propped himself against a tree.

Remember. The shadow had closed in. Like death, it sucked the very life from the forest. Kallan’s Seidr and his...

Rune turned his hand over. Even now, he felt an energy writhing within. Unsettled, it paced as if ready to tear itself out. Kallan had thrown her Seidr and something inside of him had wanted it, drawn it, pulled it in with such a ferocious hunger that could not be sated, and there it brooded.

Rune shook the confusion from his head and forced himself to stand despite the aches that protested movement.

Astrid. The supplies. Check the horse.

Rune stopped. On his feet, he could see the beam of sunlight caress the forest floor where a bit of metal glistened. Brushing aside the debris, Rune pulled the tri-corner knot from the forest floor. Still attached to the chain that had snapped clean, Kallan’s elding pendant swayed.

The Shadow.

Like a plague, it had descended and devoured the forest. Uninterested with him, its only concern seemed to have been Kallan.

“What Hel have you caught yourself in, princess?” Rune muttered scanning the forest.

Broken trees. Disrupted forest. I need a direction.

His gaze wandered to the west.

The Shadow came from the west. West.

Rune walked to where the Shadow had entered the clearing and focused his attention to where the trees were thickest. At first glance, the wood appeared undisturbed, but the restlessness that stirred within him pulled him into the foliage.

There, he knelt and scanned the terrain until, several paces ahead, buried deep into the trees, he saw where the earth was unsettled.

Four.

Rune raised his eyes to the faint trail that twisted a path through the forest.

To the west.

Beside Astrid, Rune cleared the leaf debris from the ground and dumped the contents of Kallan’s pouch, tossing it aside.

Folded packets of powders he couldn’t identify, a vile of golden liquid, multiple stones engraved with runes he couldn’t decipher, round stones he assumed were bartering stones of some sort, and an apple were its only contents. But his eyes fell to the apple that glowed as if threads of gold and light had been infused into its skin.

With furrowed brow, he reached to take the apple, but the moment his fingers grazed the flesh, the Beast within him stirred. He clamped the fruit and the Beast pulled on the lines of gold that trailed up his arm and into his skin until the light had ended. An apple with red, ordinary skin remained.

Gasping, Rune dropped the fruit and fell to his hands. Sweat beaded upon his brow. Shaking, he rubbed his face while the apple lay as ordinary as any apple, and the Beast resumed its pacing.

Uncertain of the surge that encouraged his blood to flow, Rune blew a short sigh and, determined to be on his way, snagged the pouch.

Rune stopped and looked to the pouch he held, certain he had dumped all the contents. Taking it, Rune turned it upside down, and another apple, as gold as the first, hit the ground. Unease stirred the pacing Beast as Rune’s heart pounded.

Cautiously, he reached out. As before, the Beast roared and pulled the light from the apple into his arm. Another ordinary, red apple fell, but it was the increased weight to the pouch in his hand, that drew his attention while the Beast settled once more.

Peering inside, Rune saw another, single apple as golden as before, nestled within. Before his hand passed into the pouch, the Beast was alert once more and the apple was drained and ordinary, lying on the ground with the first two.

And still, another apple appeared. Already the Beast was stirring, raising its interest in anticipation for its next fix. He could feel the draw to feed it, to take up the apple and sate the Beast, and all at once, the desire to control it, to tame it, to master it emerged.

Rune raised a hand to the apple, the Beast roared, and Rune withdrew his hand. He felt the anxiety, the frustration within the Beast, the Shadow, stir and he brought his hand back to the apple. The closer his hand came to the threads of light, the more unsettled the Beast became.

Rune fought the appetite, the need to draw on the threads, and moved his hand closer. The Beast reached for the light. The Shadow licked at the lines that would sate the need, and Rune pushed the Beast back. Taking in the link, Rune found the lines and pulled them. The light from the apple drained and Rune focused his attention on breaking the link. Hungrily, the Beast drank, devouring the light and Rune bore down, determined to tame the Shadow.

The lines weakened. The Beast grew more desperate. And Rune focused all his strength on the light, the Shadow, his will, and the Beast. He battled the Beast until Rune severed the light lines that remained fixed to the apple. The Beast roared. It bucked. The Shadow grew, and Rune slammed it down, forcing the Beast to obey under his will.

In his hand, Rune held Kallan’s golden apple. With a satisfied grin, Rune sank his teeth into the fruit and gasped when his shredded muscles rewove themselves, his broken nose mended itself, and the aches in his joints vanished.

The familiar weight in the pouch returned and Rune gazed inside. There, a fifth apple rested as golden as the one in his hand.

* * *

By the twelfth apple, Rune was able to take up the fruit and keep the Beast from stirring. The tension was there. He felt it wanting to fight, but Rune had maintained the strength to keep the Beast at bay, allowing him to draw the threads of light.

With the contents returned to Kallan’s pouch, he made his way back to Astrid who had remained in the clearing.

Taking up the reins, Rune looked to the west.

He was under stocked and less prepared than usual for the situation. With Kallan’s dagger and no shoes on his feet, he was in no position to track, let alone venture into battle. But he had only a few hours before Kallan’s trail went cold and mid-day was long since passed.

I’ll make weapons along the way,
he decided.

The Beast raised its head. He felt it too: the draw and want of the light and much stronger than anything from the apples.

Withdrawing Kallan’s dagger, Rune sank to the bushes out of sight.

One.

The Beast within paced hungrily, aching for the pull with more vigor than before.

Steady.

Rune located the primary source of the Seidr nearby. The energy it exuded riled the Beast, forcing Rune to focus his efforts on holding it back. The Seidr source shifted faster than anything Rune had seen before. But the Seidr from that single source pulled at the Seidr lines fused to the earth and the air. Where the Seidr source moved, it left a trail behind, making it difficult to track its location, and the moment he found it, it moved again.

The Beast snarled. And Rune turned, knowing his opponent was too fast long before the cold blade touched his throat and Rune held his breath, waiting as a dark voice spoke:

“From the threshold of Death’s door where Raven loves the Crow,

Take his outstretched, withered hand. ‘Release,’ he calls. ‘Come forth’.”

Rune breathed and shoved the blade from his throat while laughter broke the forest’s silence. “Bergen!”

“You looked like you were going to piss yourself three ways sideways,” Bergen chuckled.

Rune ran a hand over his face, wiping away the beads of sweat before sheathing Kallan’s blade.

“There isn’t time for this,” Rune said. “Where’s your horse?”

“Hey!” Bergen called. “Where’s the queen?”

“There’s food here and flint,” Bergen said, pulling the saddlebag from the black mare and handing it over to Rune. “A few swords and knives are secured to Zabbai’s saddle. I picked them off a band of Men a day back.”

Rune looked up at attention. “Men? In Alfheim?”

Bergen nodded. “Their weapons are forged with impure iron. They’ll break, but it’s something.”

Rune ignored him and fastened the sword to his side.

“What are you doing, Brother?” Bergen asked.

“I’m going after her.” Rune said, looking over the Dokkalfar blade and securing another set of knives on his belt. “Let me have your boots.”

Without question, Bergen pulled off his boots and tossed them to Rune.

“Do you even know where they’ve taken her?” Bergen asked.

“By the few tracks they left, they went west.”

“Midgard,” Bergen said.

“It shouldn’t take more than a moon.” Rune pulled on Bergen’s boots as he spoke. “Not sure yet what I’m dealing with. They’re on foot, but…” Rune’s thoughts trailed off. “Ride back to Gunir. Take the throne in my stead, and here.”

Rune pulled off his signet ring and thrust it at Bergen, who threw his hands into the air.

“Whoa,” Bergen exclaimed. “You know I can’t afford to tarnish the disrespectful reputation I’ve been honing for centuries. What would Torunn think if she caught me being responsible with that?”

“Fine.” Rune jammed the ring back on his finger and studied the longsword on Bergen’s back.

The Seidr source that had awakened the Beast with such hunger, the Seidr source that drew from all other lines around them as it moved with its keeper, came from the blade on Bergen’s back. Until now, he had never detected the amount of energy stored in its core. When Bergen arrived ages ago, dismissing the longsword as something he had picked of the Dokkalfar, no one had questioned it. But not even the Dokkalfar make blades like that.

“Give me your Firstborn,” Rune said.

Bergen’s eyes were set aflame. “You can have the boots off my feet…”

Rune frowned.

“…the shirt off my back…”

“You never wear shirts.”

“…the pants off my hide,” Bergen offered.

“No, thanks.”

“You are not taking my Firstborn,” Bergen declared.

Rune scoffed. “You didn’t pick that off a Dokkalfar, did you?”

Bergen went pale.

“Later,” Rune said. “I have no time. Give me your bow.”

Bergen gave him the bow without objection.

“The quiver,” Rune said.

Bergen obliged.

“And your pipe,” Rune said.

Bergen made a sound like he had swallowed a cat. “You’re killing me here,” he said, but handed over his pipe and some leaf.

“If I’m not back by the next new moon, come find me,” Rune said while he fastened Bergen’s quiver to his belt. “Tell no one that you’ve seen me.”

Rune pulled himself onto Astrid and steered the stallion west.

“Hey!” Bergen called once Rune had eased Astrid into a cantor. “What am I supposed to tell Torunn?”

“Do what you always do!” Rune called not bothering to look back. “Compose one of your stories.”

CHAPTER 36

A void encompassed Kallan. Distant voices faded in the dark. What pain there was, she didn’t feel. Not yet anyway, but she would. The darkness devours everything. Light does what it can to fight it off, producing endless energy to do so.

Endless energy. Endless Seidr. Light has to try so hard. Darkness just is, there, suspended in the Great, waiting for when the light goes out, when there can be nothing but the Great Void to welcome it.

Such stories emerge from the Black. Some of them true, some seeded by a variant of truth. Most are just ludicrous lies.

Every child grew up hearing the stories of the Shadows where figures brood with long, menacing fingers, sharpened to fine tips, and pallid, sickly skin stretched over a skeletal frame. Their hair was wild and wiry, and as black as their horrible eyes. Those eyes, those dreadful, lifeless eyes, bulbous and bulging like polished, black stones that could pierce through any darkness. It was those eyes that gave rise to the rumors of the Shadows, for it was long said that they could extract the light from anything, and with it, life.

They drank blood and ate children. The sun was their only bane. Their breath brought the winter. Their voices, death. They never slept and lived to devour. Over the years, rumors evolved, dramatizing their weaknesses: pendants and charms worn to daunt them, herbs and spices woven and hung over thresholds. Waters stolen from Mimir’s Well, all to deter the Shadows. All were just ludicrous lies.

In truth, they were the Dvergar, the Alfar race whose artisanship and forge drew them into the mountains long ago, before the ancient stories were ancient stories, before the forgotten war of the Aesir and the Vanir forced Odinn to recoil into his halls in Asgard and accumulate the Dead Riders for his Great Hunt.

For three ages, the Dvergar worked and honed and molded their jewels, melting metals, and casting stones with a beauty that, ages later, none could surpass. Many once believed that the Dvergar learned their art from the Vanir. But that was ages before the war and the Schism, and much longer before Kallan had walked their halls with her mother.

Kallan curled her fingers, dragging the tips along the cold, rough stone. Every breath expanded her lungs against her chest wall, pushing on every broken rib. She counted three and knew there were more.

She tried to think, and wished her mind alert, but her thoughts didn’t obey. They stirred, curiously glanced about, and dozed back to sleep where they stayed heavily weighted with a dense cloud that dampened all emotion.

She tried to breathe through her nose, but it was swollen, smashed closed and clogged with dried blood. The sudden, sharp intake of breath through her mouth was a mistake. An unrecognizable bitter tang bit her throat, and Kallan gasped then coughed.

Thousands of minute explosions burst like pops of flame through every joint. The constant hum of agony awoke like a dragon, thrashing and roaring throughout her body, ripping and renting the fibers of her being. Stone sliced her back with every movement, adding a layer of fire that managed to split through the carefree cloud that dulled her senses, weakening the haze enough to arouse emotion, but only for brief moments at a time.

The spasm subsided and, with it, the dragon, leaving her in a numbed state of consciousness. The throbbing was slow to subside and she tried to move.

Bitter copper coated her mouth and Kallan licked the split in her fattened lip. She moved her hand to assess the damage, but a dead weight pulled on her wrists. A sharp, cold staccato scraped the ground, and a grotesque sick moved in. Panic fought to scream, but the looming cloud persisted. The surge of worry died away to the iron wall in the back of her mind where fear and care dissipated.

Curiously, Kallan felt for the weight and found links of metal. Blindly, she rolled it over and followed the rows of redundant links that climbed to her wrists. There, a set of thick, heavy shackles secured her in place. She continued her investigation down the links of two separate chains that joined a single run and ended at the final link burrowed into a cold, jagged, stone floor.

Kallan opened her eyes, blinked and closed them again to allow her sight to adjust. Endless and thick, the black enveloped her. Behind her, a single monotonous drip echoed from deep within the cave. She lay there, listening, unconcerned with the drip, the dark, or the chains.

A soft, orange light shifted in the distance. Uncertain at first as to what it was, Kallan fought her eyes to work. She identified the glimmering black-orange sphere in the distance as a torch or lantern light. In the silhouette of its flame, barely an arm’s reach away, Kallan deciphered the outline of a bowl that held the source of a rancid, bitter tang.

From the bowl, smoke wafted into the air in a single stream and lofted beautifully around her. Kallan lifted her eyes, more curious than concerned, and studied the shapes that rose from the floor. She dragged her hand through the fumes, mesmerized as they rolled and billowed around her shackled wrists.

Through the smoke, she made out the crude outline of rock and stone.

“Walls,” Kallan said.

The sound scraped her throat, its melody clawing the raw flesh, and she coughed, sending her into another fit of convulsions that added a new collection of lacerations to her back, shoulders, and legs.

When, at last, her body stilled, she breathed in the air thick with vapor. Her head flopped about on the ground and she stared stupidly at the bowl. She gazed for a long while and contemplated moving it away, but with every second, it became harder to think and a thick, dense cloud pushed down against her thoughts.

Kallan shook her head, which proved to be the worst idea yet. Thoughts jumbled, colliding into one another until her mind was plunged into disarray and she lay, panting on the floor and waiting for the clutter to settle.

Her breath slowed and she tried to think again, but nothing came. A familiar gleam caught her eye and she reached, taking up one of the links of the chain.

Smooth, silver-black metal shimmered in the distant light. Abrupt panic leapt and her heart jumped, breaking through the daze that suppressed her. All at once, she was on her knees, clawing at the floor, panting through nervous huffs of breath until dizziness pulled her head to the side and she wavered, falling to the jagged stone that mercilessly dug at her flesh.

“Dvergar,” she breathed.

Her hand flew to her neck and Kallan remembered. The back of her throat burned with want to cry. Her precious pendant was lost to the earth.

With a desperation that pushed her beyond the haze, Kallan wiped the sting from her eyes. The chain was bulky and heavy in her stiff, swollen fingers. With as much strength as she could muster, Kallan pulled.

The metal didn’t give.

After two more feeble attempts that left her drained of energy and dizzy, she remembered the Seidr. Finding the energy within her core was almost impossible. Collecting it through the miasma was harder. Sporadic gusts of Seidr pulsed through her bonds. The metal shook and whined, protesting the abuse it endured, but remained fastened hard to the floor.

Despair increased with every failed attempt, and Kallan blasted the chain again and again. She fought back the fog, but with the bulk of her Seidr so far out of reach, she could not weaken the forged craft of the Dvergar.

A final pulse through the metal took the last of her motivation, and, exhausted, Kallan dropped her palms to the stone, inviting fresh cuts to her hands. Her head spun with a nausea that swayed back and forth like the sea tosses a ship in a storm. A cold, shallow chuckle crept through her blood, increasing until it became a sadistic laugh. The sound stirred a rage that soon vanished. Lacking the coordination to move and the interest to try, Kallan listened to the gritty sound of the laughter.

An inner voice beneath the cloud screamed for her to look, to move, to fight, but a greater part of her, most of her, ignored it despite knowing the voice inside her head was right. Stones clicked together and a fired roared to life, pushing back the shadows.

Kallan winced against the sudden stab that gouged her eyes as a fragrant fog of orange and red wafted into the air. From tangy to sweet, the stench pummeled her mouth. Each flavor took its turn at dominance, never fully mingling into a single odor strong with flavor. It burned and she shook her head. Pain seemed to be the only thing that could permeate the cloud. Pain alone seemed to motivate her.

A variety of cuts and blood, both dried and fresh, covered her hands. The white chemise she had donned for bed two nights ago was shredded and smudged. Streaks of red and black blotted the fabric to match her legs. Kallan gulped in the hopes of easing the nausea and closed her eyes against the swaying floor. Deep voices rose from the shadows, passing between a sharp staccato and a guttural drawl. She knew the sound, but it hurt to remember why.

The heavy clod of a boot thundered through the cave and dropped. Once. Twice. Thrice to the floor, then slammed hard into her side. Shards exploded in her torso, accompanying several cracks as she fell against the cave wall and back to the floor, held in place by the chains. Her head rebounded against the stone, imploding a wave through her head that spun like a whirlwind, urging nausea.

Fresh cuts sliced her shoulders as she fell, adding to the myriad of pain.

Get up,
a small voice from behind her iron wall shouted.

But I don’t want to,
she said back.

The dragon awakened, roared with every breath Kallan pushed through her chest. Something warm and wet fell onto her face, suffocating her, choking her. She knew she should move, but not caring enough to listen to the voice, Kallan stayed, not bothering to budge from the floor.

The guttural growls of foreign syllables barked at her. She attempted to decipher each sound, picking them apart a grunt at a time, and was surprised at how easy it was. But after a few seconds, she became disinterested, too heavy with fatigue to try, and abandoned her efforts.

The syllables changed to something familiar and, with an added tinge of resentment, the voice belonging to the boot barked.

“Where is it?”

Kallan heaved through the heat that smothered her, trying to understand the spoken words. Cold, hard fingers clamped around her neck and pulled her from the ground, freeing her from the stifling heat. It took her a moment to realize the heat was her own hot breath caught beneath a sheet of hair that had fallen onto her face.

“The pouch, Drui,” it barked. “Where?”

The chains scraped the floor as he jostled her.

True to the stories, his eyes were large and black. A pale complexion, much like her own, was buried somewhere beneath a wild, black mane of beard and hair. He wore a thick tunic fashioned of heavy, brown wool over his large chest.

Skeletal was the farthest thing from her mind as a pair of wide shoulders, spanning a hefty frame, secured his thick neck. Muscle toned his arms and torso with the kind of brawn a worker could only get from the mines or the forge.

He coldly dropped her to the ground and Kallan winced against the new wave of lacerations before his boot found her gut. Again, she gasped, losing the muscle control to regain breath against the second explosion of ribs cracking.

“Blainn.”

The boot stopped mid-swing.

“That’s enough.” There was a growl in that command.

Through the haze, Kallan lifted her eyes for a chance to look upon her savior.

Though as muscular and brawny as the first, he was taller and wider by comparison. He had the same fair skin and round, black eyes, but his left cheek was marked with a scar that spanned his left cheekbone, from the corner of his mouth to the side of his eye. His grotesque appearance churned her nausea.

He uttered something in their native tongue, dismissing the one called Blainn and crouching down beside her.

What do you want?
she thought, too weak to speak.

“Your pouch,” he said with an unkindness that crawled up Kallan’s back. “Where is it?”

Where am I?
she tried to ask, but her throat had swollen shut and it was all she could do to breathe.

He crouched closer, bringing his wide nose inches from hers. She could taste the stale earth and putrid sulfur on his clothes. She knew that flavor…that smell, but struggled to remember why. The memory was too old to place.