EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (101 page)

Grunts and screams exploded as the Lion Clan followed his lead, breaking into combat. Hallad scuffled against the man’s knee in the middle of his back. The warrior twisted and pinned Hallad’s arms behind him; then Olrun’s foot came into view, flying over Hallad’s head. He heard a crack as Olrun’s kick hit his oppressor. The man flew off him as Olrun’s weight slammed down over her target. Rota shadowed her sal drengmaer, fighting off four others who had moved in for the capture. But without weapons the drengmaers were no match for the warriors and within a candle flick all had been subdued and bound with stiff rope, including Hallad.

Chapter XLI

H
ALLAD
’
S
CAPTORS
HELD
HIM
IN
a dark, dank hole underneath the Temple for two turnings of the torches before they escorted him back to the surface by a narrow staircase. They marched him through the Temple’s corridors and led him into a high-ceiling chamber. Armored men, rank with mead, danced and laughed with serving wenches to the beat of drums and the frantic twill of pan pipes.

Hallad’s head banged with the music, his cheek swelling from a previous punch to his face. He searched the hall for any sign of Swan. Once captured, he had struggled to remain with the carriage, which won him blows to the head and gut while they dragged him away from his sister. His last vision had been a warrior opening the carriage door and looking inside, whistling for his comrades to come and take a look at his discovery.

Though there was no hint of Swan’s whereabouts, the drengmaers of the Lion Clan had been caged in two separate locations in the hall. Iron prisons, rusted with age, sat on either side of an archway, containing his companions. A courtyard spread beyond the arch.
 

Rota caught Hallad’s attention, her eyes hardening, as if to say,
This is your fault.

The warrior from their earlier skirmish circled the cage while Olrun wrapped her beefy fingers around the bars. He pulled his sword from its scabbard with a slick clang. The ting of metal joined with the music and merriment. The tip of his blade found Olrun’s foot. The warrior edged the point up her ankle, then calf, then thigh.

“Now we play by my rules.” The warrior’s eyes lit at his triumph.

Olrun smiled back, pressing into his sword.

“I knew you liked your women rough,” she teased.
 

The warrior stammered at the statement, fumbling with his sword.
 

Olrun took the advantage and pinched the blade between her palms, pulling the weapon from his hand and into the cage. She swirled the sword around and grasped the hilt, while grabbing the man’s tunic with her other fist and heaving him into the bars, a fingertip’s length from her face.

“I hope you are this slow under the covers,” Olrun said in a husky tone; her stare simmered, undressing the man with her gaze.

The warrior gulped, hanging helplessly in her grip.

A few onlookers burst into laughter before coming to the warrior’s aid. They surrounded the drengmaer’s cage, forcing her to give up her weapon. Olrun tossed the sword through the bars but kept her grip on the warrior, her face locked on his.
 

Abruptly, the warrior leaned forward and pressed his lips to Olrun’s.

A wild cheer erupted in the hall, men clanking horns and whistling at the display. Neither the warrior nor Olrun interrupted the lip lock for several heated moments. The crowd continued to roar until finally, the warrior broke away.

“This is not done,” he said, breathless.

“I am counting on that,” replied Olrun, her face flush as the man turned and stalked into the crowd.
 

Onlookers patted the warrior’s back as he smiled and grabbed a horn of mead, sloshed the contents, waved the horn toward Olrun then chugged the fermented honey down.

Hallad’s warden pressed him from behind, jabbing him with a short knife in the middle of his back.
 

“Stop staring and move along,” he commanded, pitching Hallad forward.

Hallad searched the space inside him that had become his sister’s. The faint nudge of her presence remaining after she fell into the dream still lingered. Hallad inhaled, steadying himself. He had to remain calm.
Think.

The press at his back sent him staggering again until he faced the far wall of the Temple, the cages and courtyard to his right, a dais with a throne a few paces ahead of him. Behind the throne, three wooden statues towered five men tall. Odin’s likeness, carved out of birch, loomed over the drunken assemblage, while the gods Thor and Freyr flanked the central god.

Ase and Gisla, under the watchfulness of two guards, sat in chairs placed in front of the dais to his right. The priestess watched as Hallad approached, her face betraying nothing.

Hallad’s warden pressed him to his knees in front of the throne. The drums halted. The hollow notes of the panpipe echoed in the chamber before dying down. The slur of inebriated warriors hushed.

A man, dressed in a brilliant blue mantle with a gray mane of a beard and a golden circlet around his head, appeared. The sea of warriors and maids parted, allowing him to sweep through the crowd, mount the dais and seat himself.
 

Another man hollered into the crowd, “High Priest of the Temple of Upsalla, Speaker of our god and king, the All-Seer Odin.”

The crowd roared at his arrival, clanking horns of mead on roughhewn tables and lifting them into the air in salute. The king raised his hand to quiet them and silence rushed throughout the throng once again. The man resembled every bit of the sculpture of the god behind him—severe features, grayish white beard sprawling to his belly and a massive trunk of a body with barrels for arms.

The king’s lips spread into a smile, though his eyelids remained at half-mast, as he examined Hallad.

“So you are the young man our God seeks?” said the king.

Hallad opened his mouth to reply but the warden shoved him from behind, warning him to hold his tongue.

The king waved his hand in a command, causing four men positioned by the door to scuttle out of the chamber as the king addressed the crowd.
 

“Fortune has smiled upon us.”
 

The men returned, each carrying the leg of a litter. On top of the pallet, Swan lay prostrate on a bed of white feathers. Her hair trailed down around her sleeping face, brushed and woven with swan feathers. Her white gown draped over the cot as they carried her into the hall.

Hallad’s gut clenched at the sight of her. If only he could reach her, release her! His mind whirled. He remained tied hand and foot, the drengmaers were caged and they were surrounded by a retinue of battle-hardened warriors.
 

Think. Think. What would father say?
 

But the only thought swirling in his mind was of his own foolishness for causing their capture.

“Our God has sought this woman—his valkyrie.” Odin gestured toward Hallad. “And this man has kept her from the Holy One. But today it is our glory, as we have captured them both. We will offer to our God the ultimate sacrifice and in return, he will favor us with a quickened summer, a fertile bounty and riches beyond our imagining. As I am named after the All-Seer Odin, and I have sacrificed for his gifts, I have been given the gift of foresight. Our God has whispered the promise of abundance within my dreams and I tell you it is so.”

The gathering erupted into another round of cheering.

Hallad lurched forward.
 

“You will not harm her!”
 

Another blow to the back of his shoulders knocked Hallad forward and he fell, knees cracking as they hit the stone floor.
 

The king turned to him, looking down at him under heavy eyelids.
 

“Of course I will not harm her. The blood our God calls for is yours.”
 

With the king’s nod, two warriors rounded either side of Hallad, grabbing under his armpits and dragging him across the floor.

“Wait,” interrupted Ase.
 

The king turned his attention to the priestess.

“I have no quarrel with you, seidr-wife. Your ability in seidr makes you an honored guest amongst us.”

Ase’s demeanor remained smooth yet guarded as she addressed the king.
 

“You do not know who you intend to sacrifice.”

“Oh, but I do. For years we have spilled the blood of beings in order to gain the power of seidr. My sight brings me into the world of the gods and our God has shown me exactly who this upstart is. I have been watching for him for some time. His death will release this girl and our God will collect and resurrect her. This man’s blood will satisfy our God and my people will prosper because of him. He should be honored at his contribution to the well-being of all.”

Ase stared back at the king without a rebuttal.
 

Hallad figured this man’s god was none other than the Shadow and he had been seduced into believing the Shadow would serve him for his loyalty. The king’s delusional god-like status amongst his people told Hallad no amount of reasoning would break the man’s belief.

Hallad’s captors continued to haul him toward the archway leading into the courtyard.
 

As he passed Ase, the priestess leaned into him, whispering, “Do not listen to your fear, but to your inner wisdom. Your moral compass is good and good comes from right choices.”

Right choices?
Hallad thought. He had not managed to make a singular right choice since leaving Steadsby.

The center of the yard contained a massive ash tree, its base thicker than twenty men; its branches pushed outward, crowding the wooden walls of the Temple. The tree’s mighty stature soared over the height of the Temple’s outer spires. Long ropes strung from the wide branches, hanging all around the base of the tree.

The captors adjusted Hallad’s binds, tying his wrists in front and securing his ankles. They lashed the rope several times around his chest and under his armpits then strung the central cord from the ash through the back of the knot, hoisting him into the air fifteen paces high. Hallad dangled from the tree’s mammoth limb, the bindings digging into his flesh, bearing his weight and burning his skin.

Chapter XLII

T
HE
DRESSMAKER
WORKED
IN
SILENCE
, intent on placing a swatch of indigo fabric under Emma’s chin. Lothar had introduced the woman as Afridr, one of the last songvari weavers in all of Alvenheim. His face had slid open with pleasure at the statement, as if Emma should be impressed—only Emma still reeled from the heartache of sending Erik away, her eyes stinging from a restless, tear-filled night.

Lothar waved his lanky fingers in dismissal of the fabric and the woman held up another piece of cloth. The lord’s lips bent upward at the sight of shimmering blue-gray threads.

“Perfect! The silver accentuates the color of your eyes. You will be the most stunning bride Alvenheim has ever seen.” He clapped his hands together and addressed Afridr, “You may proceed.”

Lothar’s ward, Weyland, appeared at the door. He implored his Lord’s attention with a jittery shuffle from side to side while Afridr gathered a bolt of fabric and draped the material around Emma’s feet. Emma had been dressed in a tight fitting stocking that covered her entire body. The hug of the material revealed her form and she felt naked, but the will to fight had drained out of her when she had told Erik to leave her forever. A numb sensation held her in a constant daze.

Whitefoot pounced at the fabric as Afridr worked, but Emma did not have the strength to ask the polecat to stop. Springing from side to side in an eager dance, he lost his balance, toppling over, only to bounce back up and leap about again. When his antics didn’t brighten Emma, he sulked away, opting to give her some space. A wash of guilt filled her. She should take ease in Whitefoot’s desire to comfort her, but nothing relieved the hollowness eating away at her insides.

Lothar crossed the distance to Weyland. The two leaned in to one another, whispering with urgency. Lothar’s anger rose, visible in the bulge of veins in his neck and Emma knew whatever news Weyland had delivered had not been to the lord’s liking.
 

Whitefoot snuck around the ground behind the two conspirators while shooting images of eavesdropping on their conversation to Emma. She wordlessly reminded the polecat of Lothar’s rage, but Whitefoot ignored her, continuing with his mischievous mission.

Low, resonant notes sprang from Afridr. A melody coursed from the woman, her tone reminding Emma of the blooms of springtime. As she sang she spread her palms over the material at Emma’s feet and the cloth swirled, rising up Emma’s body, melding together into a spectacular gown.

Emma lost her breath at the vision, finally understanding what Lothar and Bera had meant about the Mother’s touch. She also realized the
touch
was something she could never achieve. A pang of envy nudged its way through the deadness.

The material continued to spin, weaving a gown around her, delicate butterfly patterns revealing themselves within the fabric as the woman’s tune continued. Emma could not understand the words the woman sang, the language foreign, rolling from her in smooth vowels and consonants rather than the guttural tone of Emma’s own tongue. When the songvari stopped singing, the dress was breathtaking but the weight of it bore down on Emma like a landslide threatening to entomb her.

At some point during the dressmaker’s composition, Weyland had left and Lothar had turned to stare at Emma. She felt his eyes, hot, angry and calculating, upon her. Whitefoot scampered to her and hopped up and down, begging her to pick him up. She bent and obliged him, lifting him to her neck where he wrapped himself in a nest of her hair.

“Afridr, exceptionally done,” said Lothar. “You are the most touched weaver in all of Alvenheim.”

The woman bowed her head in response.