Maidensong (43 page)

The long arm of flame snaked across the water at them, igniting a silk bale in a fiery blast. The
Valkyrie
was barely beyond range, but that would end when her hull met the harbor chain ahead of them.

“We’re trapped,” Rika said softly, her gaze finding Bjorn. He was still hauling at the oar, his breath com
ing in hoarse grunts. Her heart swelled with love for
him. He’d tried so hard. If she must die, at least it would be with
him, and in this last blaze their ashes would be joined
forever. She would ask for no more.

“Rika, get to the stern,” Bjorn ordered. She scram
bled past him, resting her hand on his shoulder in a
last loving touch for a glancing moment. “On my mark, everyone leave your oar and make for the stern.”

The harbor chain pulled taut at the waterline, the metal glinting in the light of the Greek fire. Flame
hissed toward them again, its sulfuric breath a whiff of
the Christian hell. The heat of the blast blistered her
arm and she cringed away from it.

“Steady,” Bjorn said with icy calm. “Three more strokes. One.” He heaved the oar forward and then
strained, dragging it back through the water.

“Two.” The four oarsmen leaned in concert to put
the combined force of their strength toward propelling the
Valkyrie.

“Three! Ship oars.” After one last heave, they tucked the oars into the craft to reduce the drag and
the men rushed to the stern. The added weight in the
rear raised the prow and the
Valkyrie
surged forward
under her own momentum.

The shallow draft of the hull let her slide over the chain a little more than half of the
Valkyrie’s
length before she ground to a halt, her prow dripping above the waterline.

“Forward!” Bjorn ordered and they all scrambled to
ward the prow. The
Valkyrie’s
dragon
head dipped toward the water as her stern lifted. “Jorand, with me.”

Bjorn positioned himself at the rear oars and together
with his friend, he flailed at the water, trying to lurch the hull over the chain. The Greek ship bore down on them and the soldiers scurried to
rearm their weapon. This time the flames would incin
erate them like a goose on a spit. Rika’s heart sank to the soles of her feet.

Ornolf grabbed an oar and wedged the blade against the chain, pushing at it with a groan. Al-Amin
snatched up the last oar and shoved on the other side
of the
Valkyrie
as well. The little priest prayed in a loud chant to his God. In jigging fits, the ship shuddered over the chain, first in agonizing finger-lengths,
then as the fulcrum shifted along the hull, she lurched
in longer slides until the
Valkyrie
broke free and
plowed the water, gliding away from the chain.

Fire from the Greek ship blazed toward them, stopping to dance along the chain at the waterline, forming a man-high wall of crackling flames behind them.

“Up oars,” Bjorn shouted. He and Jorand hoisted
the sail and a fair wind filled the cloth. The
Valkyrie
lifted, buoyant and light, running before the wind like
a fleet hind outpacing her hunters.

Even once the harbor chain was lowered and the fire
extinguished, the pursuit was over. The ungainly Greek ships could never overtake the sleek Norse craft.

Rika collapsed in Bjorn’s arms, shuddering sobs of
relief wracking her frame. He smoothed her hair with his hand and clutched her to him.

“Don’t cry, love,” he whispered. “We’re going home.”

 
Al-Amin proved to be a poor sailor, but after the priest Dominic
nursed him through a week of sickness, he tolerated
the surging motion of the
Valkyrie,
if not with grace, at
least without complaint. The trek up the Dnieper was
even more arduous than the wild ride down, despite the fact that the
Valkyrie’s
shallow open hold rode empty of cargo. Bjorn, Jorand and Ornolf were con
stantly rowing, aided by Al-Amin and Dominic as their
stamina improved. They fought against a current that
was punishing at times and mildly annoying at others, but always dragging at them, trying to pull the
Valkyrie
south to the Black Sea.

Since Rika didn’t have the strength needed to row,
Bjorn taught her to guide the ship by means of the steering oar so when one of the five men was allowed a break from rowing it was a true respite,
not just a change of duty. No one spared much
breath for conversation, so Rika was often left with her own dark thoughts.

She mourned the loss of Helge, feeling the lack of a
feminine companion in the com
pany of five men. And she often wept silently for Tor
vald, for that sad, broken man who’d made a terrible mistake, one that haunted him all his life. H
e’d atoned for it with his final sacrifice. She hoped his tortured soul was at peace.

She fretted over Ketil’s fate. Her brother had dreamed
of being sent to the sacred grove, just as he’d dreamed of
her trip to Miklagard. Now that she knew Gunnar had
tried to kill Bjorn as a child and had succeeded in mur
dering his own father, she was sure her gentle brother
was not safe. Rika counted the days till the summer sol
stice in agitated fury. They must reach Uppsala before the Blot, the nine-day feast honoring Odin, before the
rites began and the slaughtered victims gathered on the
spreading limbs of the grove next to the mighty temple.

There was never a time for her to be alone with Bjorn and they felt the lack of privacy keenly. A stolen
kiss here and tender glances there were fast becoming
not enough. Finally at the base of Aeifor, Bjorn called a halt to their progress.

“You all know how I love Rika. I would make her mine with honor before all men. If
I don’t marry this woman right here and now, I’m
going to burst,” he exclaimed once they made camp.

“I don’t know how you can rightly do that, nephew,”
Ornolf said. “Our snares and fishing will feed us, but they’ll provide no wedding feast. We’ve no
godi
to chant the ceremony. There’s no way for the two of you to marry properly just now.”

“If I may,” Dominic said, a thin smile on his lips. “I
can marry them. All that is required is that they con
vert and be baptized and they can be man and wife by
the setting of the sun.”

“Agreed,” Bjorn said. “Your God has taken pretty
good care of you so far, my friend. Rika, will you take
the sign of the Christ in order to take me as well?”

She hugged him fiercely. Her Norse gods were distant and unreachable entities. She’d lost her trust in the court of Asgard long ago. What little she learned of
the Arab’s Allah hadn’t moved her to faith. The bloody
wrangling among the Christians of Miklagard left her
distrustful, but the need to worship
something
still
burned in her. She’d managed to assuage the urge with her weekly pilgrimage to the statue of Mars. She knew herself well enough to recognize that she needed to acknowledge
a higher being.

S
he turned back to Dominic. The
little
priest was a
good companion, brave in danger and uncomplaining in hardship. Bjorn credited the man with
saving his sanity while they were imprisoned together.
If a person were defined by whom or what he chose to
worship, Dominic’s character spoke well for his God.

“I’ll agree to anything that makes me Bjorn’s wife, but I know very little of your Christ,” she admitted.

“Then consider this your introduction to Him.” The
priest smiled. “If you are willing, you shall know Him better hereafter, I assure you.”

Ornolf scowled at Dominic, his glare tinged
nonetheless with grudging respect. The priest had bent
Bjorn to his will finally. It was something few North
men had managed. “That’s a coercive way to spread
your faith, isn’t it?”

Dominic spread his hands before him self-deprecatingly. “People of the North are so stubborn, I will take my converts however I can.”

Rika and Bjorn waded into the Dnieper with Dominic and listened without comprehension as the priest intoned the baptismal rite in Latin. The thunder
of Aeifor’s fall pummeled their ears, but the roaring of
the blood in her veins sounded even louder to Rika. After they were thoroughly doused both by the spray
of the cataract and their baptism, Dominic led them in
the marriage rite. When they climbed dripping out of
the river, they were, happily and finally, husband and
wife.

 
Torchlight blazed over the settlement of Uppsala, cast
ing wavering shadows against the mighty temple that housed the giant statues of Odin, Thor and the stiff -
phallused Frey. The reek of putrefaction in the air told
Rika that the sacred grove already hung heavy with the
bodies of slain victims. The Blot had begun.

Over the course of nine days, nine male offerings of
different beasts were ritually killed each night, their throats cut and the blood drained from their carcasses,
collected for darker uses by the
godi
later. The blood of
the sacrifices was necessary for the working of
seid
craft, the secret and often sinister magic of the Norse priesthood. Then the bodies were hung to rot from limbs of the ponderous oaks next to the temple, their
slow decay thought to purify that sacred place.

Rika couldn’t bear to look. She squeezed her eyes
shut for a moment and sent a brief prayer skyward to her new God that they weren’t too late, that she
wouldn’t find her brother’s body swaying in the breeze.

“We’re in time,” Bjorn said beside her. “No men yet.
But this is the night. If Ketil is destined to go to the
trees, we have only until the moon reaches its highest
point.”

Rika sagged against him in a confused tangle of both
relief and panic, then she straightened suddenly. “Look!
There’s Surt.” Rika stretched out her arm to point at the
Sognaman thrall across the crowded compound.

They sprinted to Surt and found that Ketil was in
deed the offering from Sogna, one of the nine slated
for the Blot, as they had feared. Surt led them to a spe
cial hut where the future victims were kept under
strict guard. The nine were fed and housed as befitted
those destined to meet the All-Father very shortly. Any
earthly wants, from rich food and drink, games and music to visits from an accomplished whore, were
granted them as they waited for death.

“Sister!” Ketil’s broad face broke into a beatific
grin. “I knew you’d come. Dreamed it,” he slurred.
Ketil hiccupped softly as Surt refilled his horn with
sweet mead.

“Oh, Ketil.” Rika bit her lower lip. He’d never had a head for drink, but she supposed that Surt felt it was a mercy to send him to his doom slobbering drunk. She
knelt beside her brother and kissed his cheek. A tear
slid down her own.

“Told you not to cry.” Ketil smoothed the tear away with his fingertips. “Knew I’d see you
again
...
at the place with the big trees.” His face
crumpled in anguish. Evidently, Surt’s brew wasn’t po
tent enough to erase his predicament from even Ketil’s simple mind.

Bjorn stooped to lay a hand on Ketil’s shoulder. “
Courage, brother,” he said. “You will not go to the
trees this night. My oath on it.” Bjorn’s grim expres
sion left no doubt he’d do whatever was necessary to keep this vow. Then he
straightened. “Stay if you wish,” he whispered to Rika. “
I’m for the Lawspeaker.”

“Then I’ll come with you,” she said.

“I’ll stay with your brother, if I may,” Dominic of
fered. “Giving comfort in time of distress is my busi
ness.”

“Looking for another convert, priest?” Ornolf crossed his arms over his chest.

“Wherever I can find one,” Dominic said unabashedly.

Rika hugged Ketil briefly. “I’ll be back soon,” she
promised. “We will leave this place together, brother.”
One way or another, it would be true. Either she and
Bjorn would see Ketil freed, or they would all die this
night and leave the bonds of Midgard forever.

Flanked by Jorand, Ornolf and a totally bewildered
Al-Amin, Bjorn and Rika strode across the compound
to the
Jarl
of Uppsala’s longhouse. The raucous sounds
of feasting and drinking spilled out into the warm night.