EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (75 page)

Hallad attempted to focus on Rolf’s tale; he closed his eyes and strained to listen to the younger brother over the song that vibrated inside his head. The
Prophecy of the Goddess
had been told for so many moons that Hallad had still been swathed in toddlers’ skirts when the last of the travelers seeking the truth of the legend had stopped coming to Steadsby. The forest changed then. Shadow things and lurk-abouts replaced the older tale of the white swan goddess, and the forest became something to scare your children into proper action, lest they be carried off by shadow-spawn.

“In a flurry of fluttering white wings,” Rolf said, while flapping his arms in a poor imitation to punctuate his prose. He slipped from his stanzas, adlibbing as he often did. Erik repressed a laugh as his little brother continued, “A creature appeared—so beautiful, so magnificent, even a fool would recognize her as a goddess. One moment a swan, the next a valkyrie.”

Erik looked toward Emma, his black lashes shading the feline green of his eyes while he gently brushed her generous sun-colored hair over her shoulder. Her cheeks flushed at his touch. For a moment, Erik’s gaze lingered on the golden key affixed to a chain on Emma’s dress. The rising moon caught his features, brightening the depth of angles in his face.

Rolf’s tenor voice turned falsetto as he mimicked the goddess in the tale, slipping back into traditional verse.

Hear me; I have come to tell of greatness and disaster.

Here shall mark the beginning or the end.

Two of the same, but as opposite as Muspell is to Nilfheim,

Shall come together again and reunite our lands.

As one shall rise, so shall the other.

As one shall die, so shall the other.

As the children of both darkness and light,

So shall the land become darkness and light.

Mark this land beneath me.

Alight here, making your home.

Tell all who venture from the nordr, sudr, vestr, and austr,

For the land beneath me shall forever bond heroes.

The others hung on Rolf’s words, but only the song humming from the bowels of the Great Wood chimed in Hallad’s mind, drawing him toward the forest’s edge. None of his companions noticed as he crossed into the dense copse. The spiny branches of myrtle scratched his legs, bereft of any of the buds that should have already blossomed. Rolf’s words melted into the stillness of the forest, as the other voice, the enchanting songstress, took hold of Hallad, urging him deeper into the ancient woods.

As he crept through the forest, sweat beads broke across his forehead, denying the chill of dusk. He fingered his bow, his hand stiff. The heady scent of earth and aging roots accosted his nostrils. The moon caused shadows to take over, playing tricks in the sleeping undergrowth.
 

I should turn back
.

Out of the distance, rose the howl of a wolf—a long, low, hungry yowl. Hallad jumped and fumbled for an arrow. He nocked his bow tight, drew his elbow back, his hand fitted to his cheek, his forearm stretched to full length. The baying lingered as if originating from another realm, filling the thick air.

The woman’s voice broke at the wolf’s cry. Then, as if to soothe her nerves, the singer continued, increasing her volume to drown out the howl. A trickle of sweat moved across Hallad’s lip. Shadows became lurk-abouts in the brush.

Hallad shifted from side to side, pointing his arrow with deadly accuracy at every movement. His heart knocked. His blood coursed. Something moved in the distance. A crack.

The arrow released and within a heartbeat a strangled moan echoed, silencing the song that played inside his head.

Chapter II

T
HE
GODHI
’
S
SON
SCRAMBLED
THROUGH
the brush toward the stifled groan. As he passed, the forest floor opened up, allowing sure footing. It was as if the land itself welcomed him as he raced along, heart pumping. He broke through the thicket and stopped thunderstruck in a wide open clearing. Hallad dropped the bow from his hand; his will to move slid out of his body.

A long-limbed beauty straightened up from the edge of the still waters of Prophetess Cove, turning to face Hallad. The woman’s white hair silvered in the cast of the moonlight, shimmering off her naked limbs. Beads of water sparkled on her skin like hundreds of white jewels. The woman fixed her cool gaze on Hallad. Her hardened eyes defied the fact she bared all to a strange man. Hallad could not turn away. No matter how hard he tried, his eyes stayed prisoner to her own iron black.

The empty space inside Hallad rushed with emotions he couldn’t identify. As their eyes connected, awareness surged through every muscle, the bones and the blood of his body—a sense that on this night, the Norns drew forth his destiny from the rune stones. A shine in her dark irises, a flicker of her eyelids, told him she felt the same.

A shift in her carriage broke Hallad’s stare. He realized the woman gripped a battle sword in her right hand. Women did not carry swords! In his village and throughout the lands of sudr Scandi they carried keys, needles, small knives and broaches, proudly displayed on a chain strung around their dresses, but never swords. Even the men in his father’s longhouse wouldn’t possess such a fine instrument.

“Hallad!” Emma rushed into the opening, maneuvering to get close to her elder brother. “Hallad! I beg you to mind your conduct!”

Erik and Rolf had arrived moments before, each carrying torches. The cove illuminated as flames rose in licks toward the sky, emitting billows of pungent smoke. The smell of burnt pine wafted in the air. Both Erik and Rolf had stopped upon seeing the naked woman—or girl. By the firelight the stranger appeared to have lived around as many summers as Hallad—her body was not fully developed, her hips still narrow and her white breasts high and firm.

Erik immediately turned his back toward the young woman. Rolf gaped, his jaw hanging, eyes protruding at the unclothed stranger. Emma attempted a disagreeable frown in his direction. Rolf shrugged his shoulders and swiveled around, tangling his feet in the dead grass as he twisted. Erik worked the end of his long torch into the ground, while Rolf followed suit, trying to regain composure.

Emma crossed the distance, catching her brother by the waist; his height wouldn’t allow her to grip his broad shoulders. As she tried to rotate Hallad, Emma addressed the stranger.

“Please excuse my brother. His manners have escaped him.” Unable to turn Hallad in the opposite direction, Emma exhaled in frustration. “Upon the honor of my house, I ask your pardon and welcome you to the bounty of our table.”

The stranger didn’t respond. She shifted her frosty gaze from Hallad to Emma. With a fluid grace, the young woman crouched, placing her sword by her feet. As her hand left the hilt, the design lay exposed. The flawless steel had been meticulously shaped into an ash tree, its mighty roots digging into the belly of the earth—an identical signet to his father’s.

Hallad scrunched his eyelids and drew a breath, trying to reason. Why would this woman possess his father’s signet?

The stranger dressed in fluid movements. Her hair fell like icicles around her waist as she fastened on a stark shift. Her stone-worn shift, silver-white hair, milky skin and bottomless eyes made her look more like a swan than a woman.

The stranger pulled on tight, black leather trousers, accentuating the narrowness of her hips. After tying off the top of the trousers, she slipped a lamellar breastplate over her head, fastening it in place. She completed her wardrobe with black leather boots, the soles thicker than any warriors’ in the godhi’s longhouse.
 

A thought shot through Hallad. He wondered if the stranger was a valkyrie. A goddess. A swan maiden.

The woman bent to pick up her sword, but instead of sheathing her blade she gripped the hilt as if waiting for an attack. Emma sucked air from her lungs, panicked at the stranger’s action. Erik spun around faster than a windstorm upon hearing Emma’s distress, spotting the young woman with her battle sword in hand. He brandished his own blade in response and sprang forward.

“Move back, Emma!” he shouted, blocking the woman’s path toward Emma.
 

The stranger spun her sword, loosening her grip on the hilt, whirling the steel around until the blade pointed outward.

“Gentle Goddess Freyja!” Emma piled her skirts in her fists to make her way around Erik and over the bramble, jogging toward the stranger.

“Emma! Nei! Do not go near her.” Erik lunged forward, but Hallad stayed him with a hand to his shoulder.

“She’s hurt!” Emma hastened toward the young woman. Freeing her skirts, she held her hands cautiously in front of her, murmuring to the stranger. “We won’t harm you.”

Erik pitched forward again, but Hallad squeezed his shoulder tighter.

“Wait a moment,” urged Hallad.
 

The uncommon tone of Hallad’s voice caught Erik, causing him to pause.

“Will you look at that,” Rolf said. “It’s like she’s charming a snake.”

All three young men exchanged mystified glances.

“I can’t let her . . .” Erik wrinkled his forehead.

“She will be all right.” Hallad reassured him, but wasn’t sure why he thought a stranger with the battle sword, who was possibly a valkyrie, wouldn’t harm his little sister.

Emma drew in closer until she touched the woman on the arm. As she inspected the wound, she recognized the head of the arrow hidden in the stranger’s flesh and turned to accuse her brother.

“You shot her?” Emma said, both shocked and indignant.
 

Hallad realized a trace of blood clumped on the back of the young woman’s bicep. When he had burst through the bramble she must have already broke off the shaft and turned to meet her attacker, hiding the gash from his view.

“Shooting valkyries!” cried Rolf. “You’ll call forth the gods’ wrath on the entire village!”

“She’s not a valkyrie,” Hallad replied, trying to convince himself.

“Nei, godhi’s son. I know many a maiden who ventures the Great Wood at night with a battle sword for company.” Rolf raised his brows, challenging Hallad to deny him.

“Hush, Rolf,” Hallad responded.

“I do not take orders from the godhi’s son. The day you become the godhi and take the oaths of Odin, perhaps I will change my mind.” Rolf stuck his nose in the air and snorted. “Besides, she
is
a valkyrie.”

“Blood brother, there is truth in what he says. Have you ever seen anything like her?” asked Erik.

Hallad recalled the singing—how it had seduced him into the forest. Could she have been the singer? Yet she had not uttered a word since their arrival.

The stranger sat motionless, without as much as a blink, while Emma prodded to remove the point. His little sister cleaned and bandaged the stranger’s wound, ripping pieces of her own linen underskirt to use as a dressing.

Hallad regarded the girls as Rolf and Erik bantered about valkyries and the wrath of the gods. The stranger’s eyes shifted uneasily, and the skin on the back of Hallad’s neck rose. The air grew cooler. Aside from Erik’s and Rolf’s chatter, the only audible sound was the lapping of the opaque water on the shore as an unnatural quiet crept over the Great Wood.

The stranger jumped to one side as if she expected a lurk-about to come at her from the shadows. Emma backed up, circling her, cooing reassuring phrases as if she spoke to a wild bird. The young woman didn’t notice. A disturbed look possessed the stranger’s face. Her eyes darted as if she awaited the strike of an enemy.

Hallad raised his hand between Erik and Rolf to get their attention. In the next breath, the young woman gripped her sword, spun it three times, and pushed Emma behind her. Emma fell, the wind knocked from her lungs.

“Emma!” Erik screamed, firming his grip on his broad sword. He sped toward the stranger with a swiftness that defied his shorter physique.

“She
is
a valkyrie,” said Rolf, his feet rooted where he stood.

“Move aside!” yelled Erik as he leapt in front of the young woman—but the stranger ignored him, jabbing her blade into the stale air. She swayed back and forth, cutting in and out, in some odd dance with her blade.

Erik extended his fingers to catch the front of his beloved’s dress, but the stranger seized Emma’s arm, pulling her out of Erik’s grip. She planted Emma on the ground behind her, leaving Erik with only the chain from Emma’s dress in his hand.

Tremors built inside Hallad
.

 
I need to do something.

An inexplicable chill blasted into the clearing at Prophetess Cove, freezing them all in their spots. From nowhere, blackness ripped into the air as if a knife cut open a curtain, and darkness oozed through. The murk spread, crossing ground, its inky tendrils snaking over the dormant land, filling the space between the two women.

The stranger swung her neck around like a great bird, seeking Emma.

The rose-color leached from Emma’s cheeks. Her eyes enlarged as the darkness slithered toward her, crawling up and over her skin. Fear rolled over her face. A single tear escaped her eye to stream downward, rolling over her chin to dissolve into the glacial air.

Erik screamed. He struggled, but remained fixed to the ground.

An unseen force held them entrenched within its bitter grip. Before their eyes, Emma’s body gradually disappeared into the blackness until there was nothing left in her spot but the cool air and the earth beneath.

Chapter III

T
HE
FRIGID
AIR
DISSIPATED
. T
HE
space where Hallad’s little sister had sprawled held nothing more than the ground’s rough traces, the only hint she had been there at all. Hallad sought the stranger across the distance. Her features steeled against him.

“Emma!” Erik’s face darkened, his voice cracking at her name.
 

The elder brother fell to his knees, his arms reaching forward into empty air. His fist clutched the key, ripped from Emma’s dress. His distressed look focused on the stranger.