Immortal Champion (19 page)
A bull, the one in the story she was sure, stood in the shadows at the edge of the wood, not a dozen yards away, looking at her. In her dream, Eleanor smiled at how clear it all was and sat up to have a better look.
He was an imposing beast, all blocky head and broad, muscled chest, with streaks of red in his curly yellow pelt. He would be terrifying if it weren’t a dream, but it was a dream, because Lucy would surely be screaming if it weren’t and because she could still hear Carolus’s soothing voice. Cradled in that certainty, she picked up the crown of flowers meant for a champion and climbed to her feet.
Noble. Gentle. A god in disguise.
Carolus’s words followed her into the shadows and right up to the bull, where she carefully hung the crown over one dagger-sharp horn. The beast lowered his head, bowing to her, and the motion exposed his withers and the terrible scars that marked him. Eleanor gasped.
Carolus’s words followed her into the shadows and right up to the bull, where she carefully hung the crown over one dagger-sharp horn. The beast lowered his head, bowing to her, and the motion exposed his withers and the terrible scars that marked him. Eleanor gasped.
“Who did this to you?” she whispered, but of course he didn’t answer, for bulls don’t speak, even in dreams. The scars striped him all the way down his back, like some monstrous whip had torn him over and over. That any beast, even one disguising a god and in a dream, could take such cruel punishment and still have such a sweet spirit was a remarkable thing. Touched by his dignity, she knelt in a deep courtesy.
The bull lowed, a mellow, plaintive sound, and stepped closer still, so close she could smell the grass on his breath and see the dark centers of his eyes. Unnerved, Eleanor put out a hand to fend him off, and as she touched him, an odd wave of contentment swept over her, so strong it washed everything else away, even Carolus’s honeyed voice, leaving her afloat in some strange world that included only her and the bull and a deep sense of calm.
So when the great beast slowly lowered himself to his knees, it seemed natural. Proper.
“Zeus,” she whispered, and still caught up in the thrall of the dream, climbed onto his broad, scarred back and let him carry her away.
CHAPTER 11
ELEANOR CAME BACK
to herself with a start.
to herself with a start.
God’s toes, what was she doing? Heart racing, she slid off the bull’s back and scrambled away. He swung his head to look back at her and plodded on, unconcerned.
It seemed so dark. How long had she been riding that fool beast? More of the dream-thrall melted away and she realized with a shock how deep in the woods she must be, how very far off the path. Could he have carried her as far as the demesne forest?
She spun in circles, trying to get her bearings, but the trees grew so rank their branches blocked all but small patches of the sky, and after such a wet winter, every trunk hung thick with moss, confounding her efforts to tell north from south.
A branch snapped, and she jumped, but it was only the bull, still moving off into the murk. Beyond him, though, a faint glow painted the spaces between the trees. Hoping the bull knew where he was going, and that she wasn’t being even a bigger fool than she already had been, she fought back the panic and followed him toward the light.
It was with a deep sense of relief that she hurried out into a narrow glade. Overhead, the scattered clouds glowed with the red and gold of sunset. Oh, good, west was that—
She froze.
Facing her, looking not at all gentle or noble, was the bull, who now appeared bloodred beneath the sunset sky, even to his glittering eyes. He pawed the ground and snorted, and she backed up quickly in the direction she’d come.
A scream behind her drove her forward again before she realized it was only a magpie on a low branch behind her. The bull lunged forward, a short feint. With a shriek, Eleanor scrambled behind the nearest tree, startling the magpie, which swooped down off his branch and fluttered around her head screeching like a mad thing. The bull lowered his head and charged.
Halfway across the glade, he crumpled, his legs going out from under him as though bow-shot. He hit the ground with a crash that shook the earth and lay there in a heap, shuddering and moaning.
The bull began to transform before her, his hulk spasming and shrinking as though the clay of his body were being wrenched away by some unseen hand. Hooves and horns receded, muzzle shortened, body deformed and flattened. His moans rose to an unnatural keening, a sound of such despair and agony that it sent terror streaming through Eleanor. Horrified, she tried to tear her eyes away, but she couldn’t, any more than she could move, or scream, or even breathe. All she could do was watch, aghast, as the bull vanished, gradually replaced by what lay within.
Not a god at all, but a man. Then he arched back and she saw his face clearly, contorted in pain, and the truth slammed through her.
Gunnar.
An anguished howl tore from his throat and he writhed as though being held to the flames of perdition. Eleanor dug her nails into her palms, silently pleading for the agony to stop, for whatever terrible power gripped him to release him. Finally, an eternity later, he collapsed, limp and unmoving, with only the sound of his groans to say he lived.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she struggled with what she’d just seen. A bull become a man? Her mind rejected the very idea. It must be her dream turned nightmare, all part of the same madness that had carried her here to this forsaken place.
But no, she was awake now. That was one of the few things she was certain of. She didn’t even have to pinch herself to know; the sting of her torn palms told her this was no dream.
But if she wasn’t dreaming, then what was he? Demon?
Enchanted through no fault of his own
. Gunnar’s words echoed in her mind, and she recalled the hollowness in his voice as he’d said them. He hadn’t been able to face her when he said them. Had they been lies? A demon would lie.
. Gunnar’s words echoed in her mind, and she recalled the hollowness in his voice as he’d said them. He hadn’t been able to face her when he said them. Had they been lies? A demon would lie.
She tried her feet. They moved now. She could run.
She should run. She knew which way to go now, and she could be well away before he recovered his strength.
But then what? Even if men were searching for her, they would never imagine she had come so far, and she’d never find her way back to Raby before dark. She’d spend the night wandering the woods alone. Dread shuddered down her spine.
And what of Gunnar? The man she called champion, the man who had walked through fire to save her. He still lay there groaning in agony.
A demon could walk through fire
, whispered that voice in the back of her mind. And if he was a demon, staying here could cost her. She should flee for her life, for her very soul.
, whispered that voice in the back of her mind. And if he was a demon, staying here could cost her. She should flee for her life, for her very soul.
No. She couldn’t be that wrong. She couldn’t. She’d told Lucy that he was good, that she could feel it when she looked into his eyes. She’d felt the same deep-rooted good when she looked the bull in the eye, known it in her heart when she touched him, even through the dream. She couldn’t abandon him now, when he might need help.
And so even though the dream no longer held her, even though she couldn’t fully rid herself of the terrifying idea that he might be a demon, she made a choice, no doubt foolish, not to run.
Not yet anyway.
He groaned and moved a little, and she very nearly changed her mind, but in the end, she gave herself over to whatever was going to happen, said a quick but fervent prayer, and stepped out into the open.
“ARMUBDEM?”
The veil of pain that still enshrouded Gunnar so muffled things that he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman who spoke, much less what they said. He worked his tongue, trying to make his mouth form a human sound. “Wha—?”
“I said, are you a demon?”
That voice. He prized his eyes open a slit and caught a glimpse of hem, and beneath it, the toe of a woman’s slipper, Eleanor’s slipper. Hope surged through him, clearing some of the cobwebs. “No. Not demon.”
He forced himself onto his hands and knees with a grunt, gathered his feet, and pushed upright to face her as a man.
“Not demon,” he repeated.
Eleanor stared at him a long moment, her eyes wide over tearstained cheeks, then abruptly turned away.
“Freya, please,” he pleaded in Norse, then in English, “Don’t go.”
“If I were going, I would already be gone.” Eleanor spoke with sureness, despite the quaver in her voice, and that gave him even more hope.
He started toward her. “My lady, I—”
“You are naked, sir. Dress yourself.”
Gunnar looked down at his body in surprise. His mind was still clogged with the bull’s spirit, but he dredged up the memory and pointed to a nearby fallen tree. “I have clothes. There.”
“Then fetch them. I will not run.”
He found the bundle hidden in a hollow beneath the tree, and dragged on his chemise and braies. He had a harder time with his chausses; his hands were simply too clumsy to deal with them yet. As he struggled, Eleanor glanced over her shoulder.
Apparently satisfied that he was sufficiently clothed, she faced him with a determined expression. “If you are not a demon, what are you? And do not tell me you are Zeus.”
“No, not a god either. I told you that night we heard the story. I am naught but a man, enchanted through no—”
“Through no fault of his own,” she said with him. She shook her head. “That is not enough.”
He understood what she was asking, and it was what he needed her to know. But for all the hours he’d spent thinking about how to explain it to her, he still wasn’t sure he could. He finally got one stocking on, then drew on the second to buy himself a little time to get his thoughts in order. In the end, though, there was no escape. He began.
“I am Gunnar, son of Hrólfr, called Gunnar the Red for both my hair and the enemy blood I have spilled.” Even spoken in English, the ancient form of naming made him sit up a little straighter. He was a warrior.
Gunnar inn rauði.
He could do this.
Gunnar inn rauði.
He could do this.
Her brows pinched together. “A Dane?”
“A Northman, as you would say it. I sailed to these shores as a raider long ago.” He hesitated before he added, “In the years before your King Alfred.”
“This is not the time for jests,
monsire
. Alfred lived before the time of the Conqueror.”
monsire
. Alfred lived before the time of the Conqueror.”
“Long before,” he confirmed. “It is no jest. I have lived in England these six hundreds of years.”
She shook her head in denial. “That is not possible.”
“You saw what I am, my lady. You know it is true.”
“I saw the bull and you, but . . .”
“Six hundreds of years,” Gunnar said harshly, and his jaw clenched with the memory of each wretched one. “Every day of it changing back and forth between man and beast, made immortal so the torment goes on and on.”
Paling, Eleanor stumbled over and sagged down on the log not far from Gunnar. “But how did this happen?”
“A witch’s curse,” said Gunnar. Something prickled at the edges of his memory, something the bull had seen. He reached for it, but it flittered away.
“No. Surely even a w-witch cannot do such evil.” Her fear of even the word was evident in the way she stumbled over it. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“She was a priestess of the dark gods,” said Gunnar. “A sorceress of the old ways who held great power in her day. Called Cwen.”
“She is dead, then.” Eleanor sounded relieved.
“No.” He got his doublet on and tried fastening the ties, but he was still having trouble with his fingers. He left it. “She lives. She has lost much of her power, but she clings to the same unending life she forces on us, so that she may enjoy our suffering and continue to hound us.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and huddled there on the log, staring at the ground. “Why would she harbor such hate?”
“We raided in search of the treasure she guarded, and she sent her son to lead the fight against us.”
“And you killed him,” she murmured, her voice full of accusation.
“He died, as men do in battle.”
“But by your hand.”
Gunnar’s jaw tightened. “It makes no difference whose hand struck the blow. I would have slain him if our swords had crossed. We each of us would. It was battle.”
“You say ‘we’ and ‘us.’ Are there others?”
He nodded. “Nine. All that survived the fight. Two have found release. Seven remain.”
“All like you?”
“Not bulls. They take other forms. Dog. Stallion. Hart. Raven.” He stopped there, unwilling to name Brand’s bear or Jafri’s wolf. They were too frightening, too rare in England, too easy to find if someone knew to look for them. If he was wrong about her and she denounced them, the full wrath of Church and Crown would fall on them like Thor’s hammer, and Brand and Jafri would take the brunt of it.
Please, Freya, do not let me be wrong about this woman.
Please, Freya, do not let me be wrong about this woman.
“We each wore an amulet to honor our
fylgjur
, our guardian spirits,” he went on. “Cwen used them in her spell, to turn us to their image, each man to his own. Some of us are beast by day, others by night, but we all shift at the rising and setting of the sun.”
fylgjur
, our guardian spirits,” he went on. “Cwen used them in her spell, to turn us to their image, each man to his own. Some of us are beast by day, others by night, but we all shift at the rising and setting of the sun.”
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