EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (76 page)

“What have you done with her?”

Erik thrust himself upright, his broadsword still clutched within his fist. With his blade extended, he charged the stranger with all the fury bound in Muspell. Hallad sprinted after him, but even with his longer strides he knew he could not catch Erik before his friend ran the young woman clear through.

The stranger returned Erik’s fire with a stare, her hair draped about her like a blanket of snow. The sharp edge of Erik’s weapon raced toward her chest, yet she didn’t budge. Instead, she dropped her sword. And waited.

A frustrated grunt sounded from Erik as he pulled back on his hilt, stifling his blow; he lodged his blade into the hard earth, releasing the hilt. He snatched the woman’s breastplate with both hands, grappling to retain his grip on Emma’s key and the woman at the same time. He pulled her close, kicking her sword away, and shook her.

“Where is Emma? By all the great gods, what in Valhalla have you done with her?”

“Calm yourself, Erik.” Hallad reached for Erik’s shoulders. “This is not the way.”

Erik whirled on Hallad, but kept a hand on the woman. The godhi’s son jumped back on his heels to keep his balance.
 

“You!” Erik exclaimed. “Why do you protect this . . .”

“Valkyrie,” Rolf, who hadn’t budged from his position, interjected.

“She’s not a valkyrie.” Hallad smoothed his tone, disguising the distress.

“Not a valkyrie? What about shadow-spawn? Sent from the dark god himself? She killed Emma! Murdered her! Your own sister!”

Hallad tensed under the accusation. His father’s words intruded,
Keep your head level when chaos abounds.
 

“We don’t know that.”

“Have you gone blind?” Darkness lurked in the angles of Erik’s face.

A need arose to guard the stranger. Hallad couldn’t explain it, couldn’t rationalize why, but the sensation wouldn’t subside.
Rule with your head even though your heart calls
. His father’s words played inside his mind again, though he didn’t know if the irrational urge belonged to his head or heart.

“The Shadow,” Rolf suggested. “She brought the Shadow to abduct Emma. She called the darkness forth with her incantation, or dance, or enchantment. Whatever she did—we all saw her. You can’t deny the facts.”

All three young men scrutinized the stranger. Was she a valkyrie? Or shadow spawn sent from Loki himself? She returned their scrutiny with her chin held high.

“She brought the Shadow,” Erik repeated. “And she will die by my hand.” But he paused, clenching his fist around Emma’s key while tightening his remaining grip on the stranger’s breastplate.

Rolf’s tone fell to a whisper. “Brother, what if she isn’t shadow-spawn? What if she’s a valkyrie, protected by the gods? Then, your crime will be as grave as hers.”

“Nei,” said Hallad. “I will not allow you to harm her.”

“Where is your loyalty? Your sister snatched into the Shadow and you protect her slayer.”

“Justice will be served, blood brother, but by a hearing of the Hall, not by your hand.” Erik glowered as Hallad continued, “They will decide her guilt after a trial. It is the law.”

“They will put her to the inquest and prove her guilt,” said Rolf.

An uneasy shiver crawled across Hallad’s skin. Their customs stated if the one in question proved innocent, or in league with the gods, the gods would allow them to swan-shift and disappear. If guilty or shadow-spawn, they would die. The tradition was older than many of the tales exchanged on long winter nights, said to be handed down by the gods to protect man from Loki’s shadow-spawn. Yet Hallad could not recall a time when anyone had survived the inquest.

“Bind her then,” said Erik, releasing her. “Tightly.”

“We don’t have any rope.” Hallad picked up the young woman’s sword and tucked the weapon under his belt, hiding the signet within the folds of his tunic. He marched toward his bow and quiver, where he had dropped them on the ground at the entrance to the cove. The young woman moved with him, shadowing his movements. When Hallad stopped, she stopped. Rolf and Erik exchanged raised brows.

Without another word they gathered their belongings. Hallad glanced back at the cove. The water shone like a sheet of ice in the moonlight, defying any commotion had occurred. Erik and Rolf stopped at the forest’s edge, freeing the torches from the ground. Rolf took the lead, followed by Hallad. The strange woman crowded Hallad’s side while Erik took up the rear.

Their feet crunched over coarse ground. No buds blossomed, leaving the forest’s floor dormant, coated in a knot of deadness. The woman’s footfalls made no sound. She glided like a silent shadow by his side. Hallad couldn’t even detect her breath. Yet without looking, he sensed her next to him.

Warmth surged through him overtaking the emptiness he had felt on the Green, before he had met the stranger, before losing Emma. He bit back the bile forming in his throat.
 

Emma, I failed you.
 

Hallad’s part in the night’s events would bring retribution against him, and rightly so. Godhi’s son or not, he had endangered lives by his actions.

A woman’s voice drifted through his thoughts.

A
s long as we are together.

The words wrapped around him, melting through him, reminding him of the song that had urged him into the Great Wood. Hallad glanced sideways, but the young woman kept her gaze forward, lips pressed tight. Had he just imagined she had spoken?

The woodlands wrapped them in silence as they headed back to the village of Steadsby, with the exception of the clank of Erik’s sword against his scabbard—a warning in case the stranger chose to run.

Chapter IV

“I
DEMAND
A
HEARING
OF
the Hall!” said Erik.

“Where is my daughter?” Thyre bit back at him, eyes narrowed, lips twisted.
 

Hallad’s mother teetered on a seat, erected upon a dais, in the center of the longhouse. Her hair was a shade deeper than Emma’s, knotted on her crown; her features were tight from the pull of her bun. A veil draped off the spiral of hair, signifying her station as Mistress of the Hall. The woman possessed none of Emma’s gentleness.

Villagers stopped their merriment to witness the spectacle. The crowd silenced as the two glowered at one another. Finally, Thyre broke from her scrutiny of Erik to observe the young woman standing beside Hallad, as straight and sure as a goddess. Thyre’s lips twitched into an uncontrolled grin as she calculated something unknown. The guileful leer caused Hallad’s chest to contract in forewarning.

The godhi, Hallad’s father, inspected the young woman too, but he didn’t smile. Old haunts seized his aging face. Avarr’s lids sagged over his eyes—the same mist-gray color as Emma’s, though paled with age.

Hallad stared at his father. The sleeves of Avarr’s tunic bore embroidery, emblazed with his signet, the Guardian Tree digging its roots into the earth—the same signet Hallad wore on his own tunic—the exact seal adorning the young woman’s sword tucked neatly under Hallad’s mantle.
 

The old man shifted his gaze to his son. Sadness tugged his features downward.

“The Hall will hear you now.” The godhi nodded toward Erik with the dignity of a king, but the muscles in his neck bunched as he spoke. “Speak, boy. The Hall hears all who ask. What is your complaint, who is this girl and where is my daughter?” Hallad’s father raised himself off his seat to his full height as his voice thundered throughout the longhouse, leaving behind any of the sorrow Hallad had detected earlier.
 

The crowd shifted uncomfortably. Even Hallad flinched at the force of his father. Erik’s face heated at his words.
 

“Emma is dead by the hand of this creature,” proclaimed Erik, waving to indicate the stranger. “Sucked into the Shadow itself.”

A gasp ran through the crowd. Thyre shrieked loudly. The godhi’s jaw tightened, turning his attention on Hallad. The dense smoke of the room blurred the battle shields gracing the walls of the longhouse—each, his father had told him, with a story of its own. The smells of roasted boar and abundant mead quashed the air in Hallad’s lungs. Hallad’s chest tightened as if a boulder sat on it.

“Is this true, son?” the godhi asked.

Hallad twitched. The young woman stood stiff as a blade beside him, but Hallad sensed her shudder underneath her skin.
 

“Nei, it is not.”

Erik swung at Hallad, fist connecting with his cheek. Hallad stammered backward, catching his balance, but refused to return the blow. The spectators erupted, hollering for a fight. The godhi raised his hand in the air.
 

“Enough!”
 

The crowd fell quiet once more.

“You boy,” the old man said pointing at Rolf, “you tell us what has happened.”

Erik glared at his little brother, raising his dark brows in warning. Rolf moved forward nervously at first, then flipped his scarlet mantle about him. Hallad recognized the gesture and gritted his teeth.
 

By the gods, he thinks he’s reciting a lay.

Rolf cleared his throat and launched into a colorful version of the evening’s events. The crowd oohed at every turn of his tale, giving Rolf the incentive to exaggerate. Hallad tried to interrupt, but his father held him off with a shake of his hand, as engrossed in the telling as the crowd. When Rolf described meeting the stranger, her unclothed state, the mystery of her at the cove, the crowd murmured, “valkyrie” and “swan maiden.”
 

Rolf continued, stating how the godhi’s son had shot the creature. The onlookers roared condemnation. Some prayed aloud for the gods’ pardon and protection. Thyre sobbed as Rolf relayed how the woman’s strange behavior called the Shadow that devoured Emma. Onlookers openly wept. Men cursed, rallying in word as “sent from Loki” and “shadow-spawn” replaced “swan maiden” throughout the smoke-congested longhouse. As the room overflowed with emotion, Rolf bowed his head as if finishing a grand performance.

“What will we do?” asked a man in the crowd.

“Kill her,” muttered another.

“What if she’s a valkyrie? The gods would curse us for taking their own.”

“The inquest,” Rolf suggested.

“The inquest.”
 

It swelled like a wave through the crowd until the godhi hushed them.

“By the law of the Hall, this girl has a right to speak for herself. What do you say?” He searched the young woman longingly, as if willing her to speak on her own behalf.

She stood with her white hair draped around her like sleek wings, her chin level, her bottomless eyes defying the crowd—yet she did not utter a sound.

Thyre flew out of her seat.
 

“Enough husband! I demand justice. I will not be allowed to give my own daughter a proper pyre. My own flesh and blood will wander the earth forever without the rights said and runes carved at her gravestone.”

For once, Erik and Thyre were in agreement, and Erik goaded the crowd to put the woman to the inquest. The godhi raised his hand again, causing a hush to wash over the crowd.

“So shall it be.” Avarr spoke slowly, choosing his words with regret. “Prepare for the inquest.”

The godhi bent, whispering to a servant next to the dais. The thrall nodded, pushed through the crowd and disappeared out the door.

I will not survive if you let them do this.

The words struck Hallad with the same timbre as the song in the forest. He swiveled to the stranger, only to find her face motionless
.
He combed the crowd, but none revealed they had either spoken or heard the young woman.

“And what of Hallad’s crime?” Thyre demanded.

“What do you say wife?” The godhi replied, his countenance darkening.

“It was Hallad who shot the shadow-spawn, or swan maiden, either way, he brought the wrath of the gods, and as a result my Emma is gone. By the testimony of his own friends, he moved to protect this creature and not his own sister. If we do not punish him for this crime, because he is your son, the gods will take their revenge on our entire village.” Her mouth twitched as if she tried to restrain a smirk.

Hallad had always known his mother was a ruthless woman, but to turn on her own son? He’d known the Hall would demand recompense for the night’s events, though he never dreamed his own mother would suggest it.

“My son,” said the godhi. “Do you know what the punishment for treason against your kin, attempting to slay those who control your own fate and endangering your village is?”

“Ja, father, I do.” Hallad lowered his eyes, unable to look into his father’s face.

“What say you to these crimes?”

The muscles in Hallad’s jaw tightened. His teeth ground together. He could not deny the accusations, for in part they rang true. He thought of Emma. From a young age, Hallad’s duty forced him to learn to read runes, master sword skill, study politics and war craft. His time spent with tutors left him friendless. In rare moments, free of his responsibilities, Hallad had often found himself alone. Except for Emma. She would appear with her face bright as sunlight to ease his solitude. The only other friend he had accused him of this crime. And now, because of his inaction, Emma was gone.

“Guilty,” said Hallad.

“Guilty,” repeated Thyre.

“Guilty,” echoed the crowd, until the longhouse swelled with the word.

Avarr bowed his head. Erik’s face paled with shock. The young woman pressed silently at Hallad’s side, her presence sparking a smidgen of comfort as his emotions whirled. He caught her eyes as she stared at him, her compassion apparent. In that moment he realized her eyes were not black, but the deepest of blue.

Slowly, the godhi lifted his head, probing his son with anxious eyes.
 

“The Hall pronounces you guilty of treason against your kin, attempted slaying of a deity and endangerment to this village. Your sentence is death by the gallows.”

Chapter V

T
IED
TO
THE
CENTRAL
POLE
of the livestock barn, Hallad struggled against the ropes binding his wrists. They had taken the young woman to another annex of the barn and the separation caused a pang in his chest. He called out to her, but only the knock of hammers against wood replied as the villagers prepared for the inquest in the village square.