Dolor and Shadow (29 page)

CHAPTER 40

Darkness clung to Kallan’s skin. Like a disease, it devoured her, suffocating her and sucking out the light a lifetime of laughing beneath the sun had soaked in. It weakened her as she lay dying in the darkness.

A distant beat drummed the silence. One. Two. One. Two. Kallan counted as she lay as still as her breath would allow. The agony rang in her shattered nose and she realized the drumming was her own pulse pounding her face.

She tried to open her eyes, but the swelling had forced them shut, keeping her submerged in the darkness. Unable to shudder, she remained paralyzed by the pain, taking in every ache that spread from the tips of each finger to the core where her Seidr recoiled. And in every breath, she wished for death when the darkness would take her.

* * *

Fire poured through her insides. Kallan didn’t wince. She didn’t shudder. She didn’t flinch. Her body was too broken.

A boot kicked her over, forcing the stale, stagnant air to rush into her lungs as the cave floor scraped her back. With much effort, she managed to open a single eye. A sliver of orange pulled back the black, and Durin stood, cursing, in what she could only imagine was a slew of guttural slurs that suggested he had been hitting the black root brew hard.

She saw his mouth move, but heard nothing. Her eye wandered to the stalactites clinging to the roof of the cave.

Durin landed another kick.

Kallan gasped this time and studied the limestone tips above her as her body shook against the pain she could no longer feel. Color flowed through the stalactites glistening in the fire light.

Durin’s foot stomped her hand. She felt a snap and he ground his heel into her smallest finger. A tear rolled from her eye. The orange light gleamed off the minerals embedded in the cave wall. Durin’s boot slammed into the side of her head. She felt nothing.

Shadows danced against the stone, awakening her to the hidden treasures buried within the earth. It breathed and moved with the land, its heart concealing a Seidr of its own, forever dormant, waiting forgotten in the bowels of the world. All who knew of it had passed on to become part of it. All who lived had forgotten generations ago.

This was the Seidr Gudrun had spoken of, the Seidr that mingles and flows, the Seidr that is there. Living and breathing, it moves. Until now, Kallan had failed to see.

Durin had stopped. Over her, he stood seething with drunken breath. Curious, Kallan lolled her head to the side where she could see. His face twisted as he screamed words she could not hear. Kallan relaxed and took in each breath. No longer fighting to breathe, she welcomed her death.

His lips moved and he spat, but Kallan didn’t hear. She watched Motsognir pull on Durin’s shoulder. They were shouting for a long while before they stopped. With flask in hand, Durin took a swig. Droplets of liquid—so dark a red they looked black—dripped into his beard, where he left them.

Behind him, Nordri watched with the same sick grin, now mingled with darker thoughts. His shredded tunic hung from his shoulder, revealing his chest she had seared with her flame.

In the shadows, at a distance, Ori stood silent. His eyes, as pensive as ever, fixed on hers, blanketed and empty, unreadable, as always. If he heard what Motsognir was saying, he didn’t acknowledge it, engrossed instead with Kallan’s mangled body dumped carelessly on the ground.

She didn’t move to communicate. She didn’t try. She didn’t care. She rolled her head back to the stalactites that greeted her where the Seidr glittered and danced in the Dvergar’s fire light.

Cruel, cold hands clutched her wrists, forcing her gaze from the rivers of Seidr. Desiring her final breath, she watched as Nordri pulled a ring of keys from his leather belt. He located a silver-black elding key, and fumbled with the chain that bound her to the floor.

With indifference for her broken, bleeding body, he violently shoved his arms beneath her. Each jolt sent splinters screaming through her and, when he stood to lift her, he jostled her harshly. Pain surged through her and the world fell dark once more.

* * *

Silence.

Kallan lay, unmoving on the floor. Her breathing rasped against her dry throat. She tried to remember time and failed. Pain reared its merciless claws, digging its way as it burrowed through her, but she didn’t move.

Tears flowed in their stead and Kallan stayed in the darkness, waiting to die.

A hand brushed her face. She tried to flinch and failed. Long fingers, gentle fingers, cupped her head and she relaxed, accepting the pain that followed.

Cold and wet flowed over her dry, cracked lips. They parted with relief, and she gasped. Water sloshed mercifully into her mouth, quenching the fire burning there and she gulped hungrily for the drink given to her.

The water stopped, allowing her a chance to breathe. The moment she stopped to catch her breath, the thirst returned stronger than before. Whoever showed her mercy saw her need, and again allowed the water to enter her mouth.

She drank, but not enough to have her fill.

The water ceased and a gentle hand lifted her from the hard stone. She needed to know. Forcing her one good eye open, she saw the faint, orange light of Ori’s lantern. Relief flooded his eyes, and he smiled.

“W—Where,” she said.

It was the first sound she had uttered in days. The word ripped her dry throat, sending her body into a fit of convulsions. Ori tightened his grip, holding her body still. He waited until the coughing subsided before he answered.

“Sleeping,” Ori said. “They all are sleeping now.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t remember,” Ori said. “Do you?”

Knowing she couldn’t answer, he didn’t pry further.

He released a deep sigh and once more submitted the water, letting the few droplets run from the cup he held to her lips. Kallan gasped and he gave her a moment to catch her breath again.

“Motsognir makes no plans to feed you until Svartálfaheim. I know how long it’s been since last you ate, since you drank.” He shook his head. “You won’t make it that long.”

She didn’t answer, but studied the gentle eyes the others lacked. Only after her vision wandered did he speak again, this time in a hurried tone, quieter than before.

“Kallan.”

She returned her attention to him.

“I can not help you again,” he said. “They credit your escape to your skills. But a second attempt won’t wield such luck. They’ve abandoned your health to the generosity of Durin, whose brother you’ve killed, and are no longer making use of the drug. There is talk of letting Nordri…” Ori couldn’t finish the thought.

“If you make it alive to Svartálfaheim,” he said, “Motsognir plans to kill you there. If you die on the road to Svartálfaheim…” Ori shook his head again and gulped. “It’s all the same to him.”

“Why…tell.” The two words clawed their way through her throat and she stifled another cough.

Ori laid her back to the cave floor and took up his lantern before standing.

“Because,” he said. “Sometimes the dragons are real.”

The last of the lantern’s light faded, swaying with each step he took, and left her alone in the darkness.

Lost and broken, Kallan laid alone on the empty floor of the cave, abandoned to the mercy of a vengeful hate turned berserk that brewed inside of Durin. She saw the hatred with every inebriated fit of anger he exercised.

Ori had been right. There was no need for the drug anymore. The pain supplied by Durin’s rage was her new drug, and he was more than eager to administer it.

Shadows from their lanterns came and went, but the darkness was constant. Each cave she woke in looked like the last, unique only by the assortment of stalactites and stalagmites and stench that ate her skin. Pain and shadow remained her only companions, pushing her deeper into obscurity. And when the voice had long abandoned her, when Kallan decided to succumb to their wishes, she closed her eyes and surrendered to death.

It was there, in the darkest shadows of the deepest caverns, that his voice found her.

“What have they done to you, princess?”

CHAPTER 41

Blood caked Kallan’s hair, gluing chunks to her battered face. What little covered her body was as shredded and black as the rest of her. Fighting to keep his arm steady, Rune slid a hand behind her head and attempted to pull back a clump of hair that had dried to her shattered eye. She breathed, but barely, and moved, jerking as if too broken to utter the screams inside. Tenderly, he took her mangled hand in his and, although she turned her head to see, he doubt she saw anything at all.

Biting down on his finger, Rune held back a wave of screams, biting until he tasted blood. And the rage, it boiled, and the hate, it consumed. Gently, he laid Kallan back to the cave floor. Too near death to cry out, Kallan omitted a feeble breath he could only assume was a cry.

Rune moved a hand to his hilt, and raised his gaze from the shadows. The Beast was up and pacing within him despite no Seidr on which to feed. Three, he saw as he made his way into the cave.

Two by the fire. One by the exit.

With movement like water, he notched an arrow, inhaled, took aim. He released his breath and then the arrow.

In the time it took the larger of the two to fall back with an arrow secured in his skull, the second stood with a sick smile that fueled the Beast in Rune. Before the Sick One could take up his axe, Rune’s bow met his face, knocking him end over end.

From the exit, the largest, who Rune could only assume was the leader, shouted something that sent the Sick One scrambling from the fire toward the exit. Already, Rune had the next arrow notched. Inhale. Breathe. Release. The arrow pierced the thigh of the Sick One, who screamed while the Leader charged.

Unsheathing his sword, Rune raised the blade and met the axe, shattering his weapon in two. On the downswing, the Dvergr fell into the weight, and Rune brought up the broken stub, goring the Leader in the gut where he left it in time to notch another arrow. He took aim and released. This one speared the Sick One’s spine.

Howling, the Sick One arched against the shaft. Before Rune could ready another arrow, a hand fell to his shoulder and Rune met the Leader’s stare. The Beast bellowed as lines of Shadow siphoned through him. Like venom, it seeped into Rune’s flesh, ripped through his Seidr, and tethered itself to the light stored within the Beast.

The Shadow pulled from Rune’s core, drawing out the Seidr the Beast had devoured. With it, Rune felt his own strength ebb. He buckled beneath the Dvergr’s hand as if the Leader sucked the very life from him.

The bow slid from his fingers as Rune’s legs slowly gave out. Still, the Leader maintained his hold as the Shadow rose up and engulfed him.

Move.

The Beast roared and thrashed. The Shadow enclosed the fire and light, taking all life around it. Until, upon his knees, Rune found the hilt of the daggers he had picked off Bergen. Fighting back the Shadow, Rune lunged. With a dagger in each hand, he sank the blades into the Leader’s sides.

The Dvergr coughed. The stub of the sword still hung from his gut. Rune gave another shove, burying the daggers deeper into the Leader’s sides until the hand slid from his shoulder and the Shadow retracted, severing the ties to the Seidr.

Gasping, Rune fell to his knees.

Nausea accompanied the spinning room. The Beast within him lay, heaving on the ground as if drained its life. Rune forced a knee up and waited for the wave of sick to pass. The Sick One whimpered and Rune looked up. Still alive, the Dvergr dragged himself toward the door, his body too wounded to work.

With the back of his hand, Rune wiped the sweat from his brow and found his feet under him. The Sick One groaned.

The distant plink of dripping water carried through the cave as if counting down the steps to death’s door.

One. Two.

Rune pulled Kallan’s dagger from his belt.

Drip. The Sick One whimpered.

Rune’s boots crunched the cave floor.

With a hand fisted into the Dvergr’s hair, Rune slid the blade across the Sick One’s throat, leaving the sickly smile forever frozen in his eyes.