Dolor and Shadow (46 page)

Dropping alongside Halda, Kallan unsheathed her dagger. The boy was breathing, but barely. With quaking hands, Kallan withdrew Idunn’s apple.

Kallan sat unmoving, as she clutched the apple, barely hearing Rune’s step behind her.

She could save him. With one drop, the boy would never again know pain, never again suffer, he would never die, with just one drop.

The lad was slipping. She had to do something.

Still holding the apple, Kallan grasped the boy and administered her Seidr, threading the golden strands through him. The Seidr flowed into the boy’s mouth and down the side of his face. With shaking hands, Kallan pulled at his shirt and the pool of black that had fused to the cloth. There, the stench of decay was the strongest. The wound was old, and more than blood seeped from his gut.

Blood coated her hands, smearing the perfect gold of the apple with vivid streaks. Tremors jolted her fingers as she shuddered uncontrollably. She had no choice. The boy would die.

Unable to hold her hands steady, Kallan moved to cut a slice from the apple and nicked her thumb instead. Rune took a step, and held himself back just as Kallan abandoned the apple and placed her hand onto his wound where she poured her golden Seidr threads.

“Please,” Kallan breathed then muttered the incantation below her breath.

Her body shook as she drained her Seidr, pouring everything she had into the boy. The red of her blood mingled with the gold of her Seidr and the black of his blood and waste. The bleeding slowed, but his staggered breath punched the air. Once. Twice. Then never again.

Still glazed, the boy’s eyes stared at the invisible point above his bed.

Torrid cries filled the house, but Kallan heard nothing. With the last of her strength, she rose to her feet, deadened to the weight of her arms. White fingers caked in putrid gore relinquished the apple. With a thud, it struck the floor and rolled, stopping in a pool of dried blood at Rune’s feet.

Consumed by the grief she could no longer fight, her feet carried her past Rune. Silently, he watched from the shadows and, knowing the look in her eye, he followed her out the door.

The night’s darkness enveloped Kallan, suffocating her in the abyss. Stumbling in a vacant stupor, she dragged her feet into a barren clearing beneath the moon. There, she dropped to her knees.

The night’s cold air invaded her lungs. Tightening her grip on the dagger, Kallan plunged the dagger into the earth, pulled the blade through, and counted.

One for Father.

Withdrawing the dagger from the soil, Kallan lunged and remembered the boy.

Two.

This time, her sorrow dug deeper as she stabbed the earth, rending the walls of her anguish.

“Three,” she murmured, remembering Olga’s son and Dofrar.

Four where Mother lay dead. How many more?

Kallan counted and stabbed again. Maybe if she dug deep enough, the boy would heal.

Kallan gouged the earth. Something in the soil could heal them. It had to. Memories of her father flowed from behind her wall. Tears mingled with the dirt and fell on her hands.

Three hundred for the lives of Austramonath.

Desperate to ease the pain, Kallan tilled the earth with every stab of her blade, convinced the next one would be enough, but each cut, each thrust could not fill the insatiable ache, and she dug deeper.

Tossing the blade aside, Kallan dove, burrowing her hands into the earth. With the tips of her fingers, she clawed, tearing at the ground as if looking for relief.

The ground was cold. It needed to be.

“Kallan.”

Deeper. Almost there.

“Kallan.”

Blood and earth covered her hands.

“There are no ships,” she whispered. Tears blinded her.

“Kallan.”

“It’s just there,” she said. “I can almost see it.” Down to her knuckles, Kallan burrowed, desperate to find the end. “The boy must be burned. Father must be burned.”

“Princess.” Rune took her by the shoulders.

“Or the ravens will eat them…the ravens will eat them…and Odinn won’t find them. Odinn won’t—”

Kallan lunged again. A rock sliced open her finger and Rune pulled her into him.

“Please,” she gasped, falling, and Rune caught her.

Sobbing, Kallan shook, digging her nails into Rune’s arms.

“I want my father back. Please give him back. I’ll let you go…I’ll let you live…”

The crescent moon lit her eyes wide with tears as Rune cupped her face. His thumb brushed a tear and more flowed in its place.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Please,” she begged, brimming with despair, certain he could fix this, certain he could mend it. “I have silver…please…I’ll pay…give him back.”

“Kallan—”

“I’ll do anything. Anything. I want my father back.”

And Kallan fell.

Giving her refuge where there was none, Rune rocked as Kallan cried until the latest hour, when the shadow ebbed and took with it the last of her wall. There, free of the anguish that bound her, Kallan slept.

CHAPTER 55

Kallan woke to the pop and crackle of a fire. With a deep sigh, she pulled in the warm scent of roasted venison. Walls of tanned hide formed a domed room where no fewer than sixteen poles were propped through a singular smoke hole blackened with soot. From the light that seeped through the opening, she assessed it was not yet midday.

Furs, blankets, and hides were placed in between the pole supports, providing makeshift beds and seating that was spaced around a small fire positioned in the tent’s center below the smoke hole. Pots and baskets were scattered about with satchels, all bagged as if ready for travel. Beside a silent, single drum with etched figures, Rune sat, staring through the doorway. His arms rested comfortably on his knees with his back to Kallan, as if waiting.

Peace eased her worries and Kallan relaxed as she studied the curve of his back. Memories, too bold to forget for too long, surfaced and waves of tears pricked her nose. Kallan bit her bottom lip.

If ever she was to say anything…to tell him…

Kallan pondered, but couldn’t bring herself to speak. A sigh she stifled emerged as a sniffle, and Rune turned with the inescapable look of relief holding in the silver of his blue eyes.

“You’re awake,” he said, but didn’t smile and remained seated in the door.

Kallan rolled her head back and peered up at the smoke hole then dropped a wrist on her brow as if shielding her eyes from light.

“Where are we?” she said weakly, desperate to steer the conversation clear from certain topics. Rune seemed just as content to oblige.

“You’re in a
finntent
,” he said. “There isn’t much left of the longhouse. We burned it.”

The statement seemed definitive and Kallan nodded.

“If you’re asking about the land,” Rune said. “we’re still in Throendalog, two days’ march from Plassje where the Raumelfr begins.”

“Plassje,” Kallan repeated.

“It’s what Halda calls it,” Rune said, and looked out to the open once more, leaving Kallan to her bed and silence.

For a short time, Kallan wallowed in thought, allowing her mind to wander and drift. She remembered snippets of blood and earth from the night before and her spine stiffened as she braced for the usual barrage of sharp pain to stab at her chest and rob her of breath. When only a dulled ache came instead, Kallan’s thoughts altered to Rune and a part of her softened with regret.

“Rune?”

Kallan heard him turn, but she didn’t dare look away from the smoke hole. She stretched her thoughts to the iron wall where she stored her woes in the darkness, and, catching her breath suddenly, gasped.

She heard Rune shuffle away from the door, and fought to keep her eyes ahead. He sat alongside her, waiting, like he knew she would break.

“I don’t…” A tear fell. By the time she opened her mouth to speak, the words she had amassed had fumbled apart. She gulped down a wave of cowardice to begin again. Another tear streaked her face.

“I don’t…”

“You don’t know what to say.” Kallan met Rune’s gaze as he spoke for her. “So you’ll decide to say nothing. Then we’ll both pretend you didn’t want to tell me ‘thank you’ or that you were wrong or that you now believe I never killed your father.”

Kallan bit her lip. Tears swelled and she looked to the smoke hole, avoiding Rune’s eyes just as he looked her way. Knowing the time to be silent, she waited and listened, letting him do the talking.

“Instead, you’ll lay there and nod.”

Kallan nodded.

“And we will both pretend,” he said, “for one small moment, that you did not want to thank me or kiss me.”

Kallan whipped her face to his, her eyes wide with objection.

“I didn’t,” she said, but Rune was already smiling.

“You found your words,” he said and caught her smiling before Kallan wiped it away.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she said and allowed Rune to see a smile lift the corner of her mouth.

As she exhaled, she released the temper, the anger, the hate she harbored just for him.

Rune grinned. “Of course it doesn’t.”

Half-gasping, half-smiling, Kallan shook her head and bit the corner of her bottom lip. Without a word, Rune stood and left Kallan alone in the
finntent
.

* * *

Sunlight pierced Kallan’s eyes, forcing her to take a moment to adjust to the daylight. The stench of rancid, burning flesh and hair seared her nose and Kallan gasped.

A field of carnage spanned the whole of Bern’s land from the hide flap of the
finntent
to the dilapidated remains of the charred longhouse that formed a pyre. At the base of the pyre, Rune stood watching giant flames devour the house and bodies of reindeer and cattle as streams of sweat trickled down his bare shoulders.

“The boy?” she asked, failing to force her eyes away.

It was a long while before Rune responded.

Exhaling, he passed his gaze over Kallan, and extended an arm to the distance. Stones now outlined the shape of a boat over the ground where Kallan had dug up the earth the night before. She didn’t have to ask to know he had finished the job for her and put the boy to rest in the ground.

The sight twisted her insides and she averted her eyes from the grave.

“The animals…” Her voice cracked as she spoke. “The blood.”

Rune nodded. “Olaf passed through.”

The name stabbed at Kallan’s chest. She was quickly growing to hate that man.

“Bern and Halda hadn’t heard of his arrival,” Rune said, not bothering to wait for the color to return to her skin. “They didn’t know of the massacre of Odinnssalr or his tyranny in Nidaros. They didn’t know that Hakon Jarl was dead.” The longhouse creaked as it buckled under its own weight and Rune stared into the flames. “When Bern refused to denounce their faith to Freyja,” he continued, “Olaf killed their livestock, burned their fields and home, and stabbed their child, leaving him to bleed out.”

Another stab tightened Kallan’s chest.

“But Olaf was heading south to Viken along the western roads through Upplond.” Kallan rushed through the words. “It’s the reason we came this way.”

Darkness blanketed Rune’s face as Kallan paused to think for a moment.

“What are his troops doing this far east from Dofrar?” Kallan asked.

“He came with a fraction of his men,” Rune said. “Bern believes the majority of his troops still march along the road to Aeslo while he followed a different path with a selected few. Bern isn’t sure.”

“Rune.”

Bern’s voice diverted Kallan’s attention to the human’s burly form. In the darkness he looked menacing, almost wild, but in day’s light, he looked old and worn, exhausted from grief. He waited until he crossed the carnage, seeming indifferent to what he passed.

With a weak smile and a brief nod to Kallan, he looked to Rune. “I’m almost through here, then Halda and I will start packing up the tent. Shouldn’t take us more than an hour before we’re ready.”

“I’ll be along to help,” Rune said, dismissing Bern with a nod.

“Ready?” Kallan asked, studying the woman scurrying in and out of the finntent. The forty-year-old woman had tied back her long, black hair into a braid and had fastened her apron dress with hand-carved soapstone brooches.

“Halda is Finn,” Rune said at Kallan’s side. “Her people live off the reindeer and move when the reindeer move. She settled down with Bern ten winters ago.”

Rune stepped over a pool of blood, and, when he walked, Kallan followed.

“With the boy gone, they’ve made plans to return to Finnmork,” he said.

“Where is that?” she asked, peering up with an unusual gentleness in her eyes that caused Rune to stop and meet her gaze.

“Wherever the Finn call home,” he said. “With Svenn’s wounds too great, they couldn’t travel.”

Inhaling, Rune forced his attention out to the barren, blood-soaked plain.

“Now that he and the house are gone, nothing keeps them tied to this land.”

With nothing left to answer for, Rune gazed at Kallan, who was, once again, fixed on Svenn’s grave.

The blue in her eyes was vivid. The thin line of her neck drew his eye down to her collarbone.

“What?”

Rune jumped, unaware that Kallan had turned.

“Nothing,” he said and pretended to not see the bit of a smile as he stared at the
finntent
behind her.

A solid
thunk
ended the peace between them as Halda and Bern dropped a shaft into a growing pile of poles. The tent was already half down and all their possessions placed onto a large stretch of bound leather.

“They’ll accompany us to the lake where the Raumelfr begins,” Rune said. “With luck, they’ll find the Finn along the way. If not, we’ll part ways at the Raumelfr where they’ll head north of Throendalog toward Naumudalr.”

“And we along the Raumelfr,” Kallan said.

Rune nodded.

“Hm.” Kallan shrugged and bounced her way over to help Halda with the sheets of hide.