Dolor and Shadow (47 page)

* * *

Within minutes, the
finntent
was down. With several more minutes, they had the poles splayed upon the hide, secured and wrapped into place.

“We usually fasten the harness to a reindeer bull, but the horse should do,” Bern said, untangling a mass of leather straps as he and Rune approached Astrid.

After many derogatory snorts from Astrid, the straps were fastened into place while Kallan managed to distract his disgruntled objections with an apple.

“He took to the harness well,” Halda said as she finished tying down the last of their possessions onto the hide bound to the harness. “For not being a plough horse, I mean,” she said nervously.

Too long, her eyes lingered on Kallan’s pendant, but before Kallan could ask, Halda was off, bounding toward Bern.

With a hearty pat to Astrid’s shoulder, Kallan took up the reins at Bern’s word and they started their way back to the river that would lead them south to Aursund. Passing gray clouds rarely permitted the sunlight as they journeyed. Songs of birds carried through the wood. At a distance, grouse drummed off as they took flight. The river was as wide as it was constant, leading them on without fail. Its banks housed a fair number of white-throated dippers that skittered and flicked across the surface, disappearing into the water to re-emerge again. They had walked for an hour in silence before Rune slipped to the back of the line, leaving Bern with Halda at the lead.

Kallan eyed him suspiciously as Rune fell into step beside her.

He extended his hand to Kallan. “Here.”

With a furrowed brow, Kallan opened her palm, where Rune dropped four orange-white berries.

“Cloudberries.” She looked at him.

“We aren’t going to be able to stop and I figured…” Rune didn’t finish.

Mouthwatering memories surfaced of sweet cloudberry cake interspersed with the bitter bite of the berry. A smile turned the corner of her mouth, but, by the time she looked up again, Rune was gone.

The first half of the river snaked its way through a plain that resembled a wetland despite being dry. On either side of the river, the land rose with the trees until the peaks of the hills were out of sight. The further they walked, however, the narrower the valley between the hills became. The land stretched to the sky until mountains boxed them in like a pair of hands cradling them between its palms, like a child cradles a glowworm.

The mountains pushed them on, forcing them to the river’s edge where the water had almost no room to flow.

Within hours, the mountains rolled down off their peaks and opened the valley, granting them room to breathe. As Rune promised, they didn’t stop. Not at midday, when the sun passed high overhead, nor five hours later at sunset. They walked in darkness along the river with less moonlight than they had the previous night, as if counting down the time Rune had left.

* * *

Within a quarter hour, Bern and Halda had pitched the
finntent
and rabbit roasted over the fire inside. They chattered idly amongst themselves about the farm, the war, and Halda’s heritage. After they ate, Halda withdrew her drum and struck the softened hide pulled taught across the wooden frame while Bern pulled out his long smoke pipe, encouraging Rune to follow suit.

Around the fire they sat, saying very little as they listened to Halda’s voice ebb and flow like the wind. She sang for more than an hour as Kallan, lulled into serenity, tucked her knees to her chest beneath the heavy overcoat.

At times, Halda’s voice dipped so low, so soft, Kallan strained with her Alfar ears to hear the faintest hum. Smoothly, her voice would rise again like the wind passing in and out of the trees at a whim. At the end of the hour, when Halda set the drum to the side, Kallan dismissed herself and emerged from the tent, lost in endless memory that had awakened.

Purple lights moved overhead much like Halda’s music. Free of the pain that had haunted her, Kallan remembered the streets of Lorlenalin all dressed for the Midwinter Jol, when the giddiness of the Raven’s feast stirred the mischievous nature of the children, and she would run through the streets with Eilif, elated for the break in her studies.

She raised a palm and summoned a ball of gold, which spun on her command. Kallan remembered Gudrun and her Seidr lessons. She remembered her father’s voice as he guided her through each sword lesson. The reprimand and scolding she and Eilif received when they overturned the table Cook had laden for feast one Disablot on the eve of Disting. The look in Kri’s eyes when she and Eilif showed up one Jol with bowls of pudding.

Kallan smiled and flipped her palm about, encouraging the Seidr to obey as she recalled the day her father first tossed her onto Astrid.

“They’re beautiful tonight,” Rune said.

Kallan jumped, extinguishing her Seidr.

“Beautiful?” she asked, not daring to look at Rune.

Inhaling, he drew a breath through his long pipe as he settled himself down beside Kallan.

“The Valkyrjur.”

Rune pointed to the cool blues and purple lights dancing in the sky. He released a long line of smoke. “The days are getting shorter,” he said thoughtfully.

Kallan raised her hand and summoned her Seidr. The line of gold light filled her palm, captivating Rune’s attention.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Seidr,” she said, holding her gaze on the Seidr as she flicked her hand over once more.

Rune pulled another draw through the pipe.

“I thought the Seidr is what you light my back side with.”

Kallan cracked a wide smile and shook her head.

“No.” She afforded a glance to Rune. “That’s fire. Seidr flame.”

In silence, he watched, as if enthralled with her hand enclosed in threads like streams of gold.

“This,” she said at last, “is Seidr…just Seidr in its basic form.”

She flipped her hand over once more, commanding the light to pull up and around her fingers like flame.

“This is the energy I manipulate to create the fire I
try
to burn your back-side with.”

Rune released the smoke. The moon was little more than a sliver.

“Two nights will be the new moon,” he said, releasing another draw as Kallan played and pulled on her Seidr. She felt the shadow clearing her eyes, leaving behind a hint of kindness and she relaxed her shoulders, adding a pleasantry to the air.

She flicked her wrist and the Seidr obeyed as she proceeded to play with the ball of light, pulling back on the Seidr and letting it go.

Taking another long draw, Rune looked to the moon and released a long breath.

“Kallan.”

Silence.

“I realize this is probably going to end with us locked in combat…but let’s assume for a moment that a Ljosalfr didn’t kill your father.”

The wind passed by, ruffling the tension between them.

“Alright.” Kallan’s voice was gentle enough to encourage him to continue.

“The day he died…was there anyone else you may have seen?”

Kallan extinguished her Seidr and she felt Rune relax. Her chest rose and fell with the deep sigh she took and remembered: Daggon riding off after the warrior, the empty keep, her father and the black blood.

Kallan shivered.

“No,” she said. “Just you and your kin.”

“And what about your father?”

“You aren’t suggesting—”

“No,” he said. “I’m asking. Try to remember. Was there anyone?”

Kallan shook her head.

“Just Daggon.”

“And Daggon wouldn’t—”

“No. Daggon wouldn’t.” Kallan’s voice was firm. “He was my father’s captain before he was mine. Daggon held his allegiance without question. My father died—”

A flood of tears burned the back of her throat and filled her eyes before she could stop them from falling. Looking away, Kallan forced her worries in check and shoved the tears away.

“My men had orders to apprehend Eyolf and bring him back to Gunir alive.”

Kallan looked at Rune. Disbelief twisted her face.

“I had hoped, with him there, we might commence negotiations,” Rune said.

Kallan hugged her knees tighter and stared at the ground. She caught the sympathy in his voice when he added, “If one of my men did kill him, then it was against my orders.”

Kallan dug at the exhaustion in her eyes.

“Did you see anyone?” he asked.

Kallan shook her head. “No one.”

Rune sighed and pulled in another draw from his pipe.

“Am I meant to believe you?” Kallan asked, “That your orders weren’t what killed my father?”

Rune met her eyes.

“I didn’t do it,” he said.

“Why should I believe the son of the king who laid waste to the Dokkalfar during the feasts of Austramonath?” she breathed.

Her voice had grown cold.

Images of the Austramonath Massacre flooded back: Dokkalfar women hewn in two at the foot of the pikes that impaled their husbands. Children that lay, left to die in pools of blood, and a single boy clutching the remains of his brother.

“Not one of the three hundred lives was spared,” Kallan said. “Not even the children.”

“Long have I suffered to shed my father’s shame,” Rune said. “Long have I yearned to share their anguish. It is the shame I and my brother bear.”

Thick, dry tears burned the tip of Kallan’s nose.

“Our cries carried over the massacre of Austramonath when we found what our father had done,” Rune said.

Kallan stared, lost in what to say.

“It was in a fit of berserker rage that my father spilled that Dokkalfar blood,” he continued. “When he came to, he realized what he had done and killed himself in hopes of rescinding his crime. He killed himself when his dead wife failed to utter words of forgiveness.”

Stupid understanding, the kind that leaves you feeling small and insignificant, left Kallan wordless as Rune held her gaze.

“I am not my father’s son,” he whispered.

Kallan forced down the unease in her stomach.

“What will you have me do?” she said, fighting back the tears that swelled with regret from the blood lost.

“Believe that I did not kill your father.”

CHAPTER 56

Kallan stared across the cold coals at Rune, who gazed back from the other side of the
finntent
. The strange, sporadic honk from outside was faint. The second honk was louder and accompanied the strange staccato of a series of quacks along with a kind of clicking that grew by the minute.

“Boar?” Kallan asked, perplexed, keeping her voice low.

“Too late in the season,” Rune said.

“Not boar,” Bern said, pulling on his boots and taking up the rope next to him where Halda still slept. “That’s reindeer.”

Quietly, he crept across the tent.

“If we get to the lake before we find Halda’s kin, we’ll be without horse or cattle,” Bern said.

The quacking and clicking grew louder until the noise was too loud to continue whispering from across the room. From beneath the furs, Rune scrambled to his feet, keeping low before crouching down at the door beside Bern, who peered outside. More than nine hundred reindeer surrounded the camp, pulling at the lichen on the ground, honking and grazing, while others lingered at the river for a drink. The incessant calls of reindeer grunts were as deafening as a hundred wild boar rooting about in the ground, and, with every step of every leg, there was a distinct click.

“There must be a thousand.” Bern studied the herd packed into the valley enclosed by the mountain.

“The gorge doesn’t give them much place to run,” Rune said, looking at the high walls of forest on either side.

Bern nodded.

“The only escape is back the way they came.”

“Could be confusing should something leap out at them.”

Eager to make his exit and launch his battle upon the prey, Bern readied himself to lunge like a king into battle.

“Let’s go get one,” Bern said, rallying his lone legion.

Enlightened with an epiphany, Rune clasped Bern’s shoulder.

“Let’s get two.”

“What are you doing?” Kallan asked, putting a temporary end to their discussion. As she propped herself up, she peered at the men bouncing with eagerness on the balls of their feet.

“Hunting,” Rune whispered and took up his quiver, which he fastened to his belt.

“Alright,” Bern whispered, “but I’m roping mine. Halda and I can use it for hauling.”

“Fine,” Rune said, loading an arrow into his bow. “So long as I get to eat mine.”

Bern unraveled the rope he was rearing to throw.

“Ready?” the Ljosalfr asked, preparing his bow.

“Ready.”

Throwing back the hide flap, the men charged the herd, releasing their battle cries and sending four black wood grouse into flight followed by their calls. The reindeer bolted, making slow progress as the herd of ten hundred all picked a direction to run and promptly went nowhere. The few who succeeded in rearing up, landed their front hooves onto another’s back, while those along the outside edge managed to make it around the herd.

By the time Rune had dropped his pick of the bulls and administered Freyr’s blessing, Bern had roped a large, six-pointed female reindeer, a cow of abundant stature. Panic had taken her and she ran circles around her captor, limited by the confines of the rope tangled in her antlers.

“Easy now…Easy,” Bern soothed.

Rune grinned at Bern’s lassoed reindeer.

“Come on now,” he said. “Mine’s behaving rather nicely. Get yours in order.”

Bern pulled in the rope for less give, as the cow changed directions.

“Mine is a bit more nervous than yours,” Bern said while affording a glance to the dead bull.

Bern’s reindeer tried to leap, desperate to rejoin the herd that had sorted themselves out and bolted.

“Sh. Sh. Sh,” Bern hushed. “Easy, girl. Easy.” But she persisted and Bern allowed her the room to change her direction and circle again until she had run herself to exhaustion.

Only then did Bern shorten his leash, hushing and reeling until he was close enough to touch her.

“Easy, girl,” Bern whispered, stroking the fur already thickened for the winter ahead. His fingers sank into the coat up to the first knuckle. Save for the prominent patch of brown that covered her shoulders and the curve of her back, her body was white and contrasted her black and brown face. Her antlers, still covered in a thick coat of velvet, had not yet begun to shed. Holding her head down, the reindeer heaved. With mouth agape, her tongue hung to the ground as she panted to regain her breath.

“Easy.” Bern gently patted her shoulder.

From the
finntent
, Kallan and Halda watched as Rune cut the bull open and began the process of preserving the blood for storage while Bern administered another run of hushes.