Fire and Lies (7 page)

“Please,” she repeated. A fresh waved of tears fell. “Let me go.”

Rune’s men looked on in silence. Her plea broke her fortitude and, trembling, Kallan dropped to her knees, releasing her weapon as she fell.

Rune fell with her and pulled her into him, guiding Kallan’s head to his shoulder. Kallan wept.

W
aves pummeled the ships that whined and creaked with the wind as they cut their way through the water along the shore. For hours Rune sat, his gaze fixed on Kallan, who stared, distant and dazed at the ship’s fore stern.

At the aft, Bergen brooded, staring at Rune and refusing to take his eyes from his brother.

“You can relax, Bergen,” Rune said at last, not bothering to look up from his nap.

“Like Hel I can,” he said.

The tension on board the ship was thick. Although the catcalls and jeering had stopped, a dread replaced the joy of taking the Dokkalfar Queen onboard.

“What has she done to you?” Bergen asked.

“She didn’t,” Rune said and finally raised his face to his brother. “Borg did.”

Something akin to shock, disbelief, and confusion muddled Bergen’s face. “The spy?”

Rune closed his eyes and dropped his head back down to rest.

Bergen passed the tiller to Ottar and shuffled himself down beside Rune against the aft trestle.

“Rune, I’ve met Borg. I’m one of the two who have. Borg is just a lowlife. He’s the lowest rank in the queen’s army. Not even the queen’s army. A
nidingr
once the wench gets hold of him. He has no such power.” 

“He does,” Rune said and looked at Bergen. “And he did.”

Bergen sat back, still in disbelief.

“Now you see why we can’t kill her? Why she can’t go home? If anyone can get this thing out of me, a Seidkona can.”

“Has she agreed?”

“As of yet, Kallan claims to have no knowledge of the Beast. And I believe her,” Rune added as Bergen opened his mouth to protest.

“What are you going to do with her?” Bergen asked with a nod toward Kallan, who hugged herself at the fore.

“With her?” Rune asked, unmoved by the lackadaisical indifference in which Bergen spoke of her.

“We’re closer to Lorlenalin than we are to Gunir,” Bergen said. “I don’t doubt the Dokkalfar are out looking for her.”

“Are they?” Rune asked, peering over his shoulder.

The water lapped the ship’s strakes as Bergen studied Rune’s composure.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Bergen asked, not expecting an answer. Rune didn’t disappoint. Bergen felt the ship ease along its course as Ottar gently pulled back on the side oar. “She’ll run the moment we touch down on land.”

Rune held his eyes on Kallan.” She won’t run,” he said.

“She won’t stay,” Bergen said, shaking his head.

Rune looked back to Bergen. “She won’t run.”

Curious, Bergen watched Rune then shifted his gaze to the Dokkalfr, who still stared rigidly out past the ship’s stern. Bergen looked to the cliffs of Alfheim’s shores that followed along the portside as he contemplated the harbored look in his brother’s eye masking the words Rune had not yet spoken.

“Torunn isn’t going to like this,” Bergen said, and Rune smirked.

The ships pushed along the shores, leading them to a series of outlets that drained into the sea from Alfheim’s mainland. Wide, rushing paths of water opened, inviting them upstream. Every time, Bergen passed over each. The current picked up, forcing him to pull against the waves that pushed the ship further out to sea.

“We’ve long since entered the Kattegat,” Rune said softly as he joined Kallan at the fore stern.

“The cat’s gate,” he translated. “The sea runs shallow here. During the midsummer months, there are places where the water dries out completely. If we’re not watching, we’ll run aground. At low tide, we could end up stranded until high tide returns.”

He glanced at Kallan, who stared unmoving, unchanged beside him.

“That’s why it’s so dangerous to sailors,” Rune continued, unable to decipher the blanketed stare fixed on the sea ahead. “It looks no different than any other sea. One summer, Bergen and I sailed through here with fewer supplies than a week’s delay allowed. Geirolf wouldn’t let us live it down for years. We came back later just to map out the safest passage.”

Her silence encouraged him to end his monologue, but he stayed beside her, nevertheless, as the ships sailed on.

With carefully laid direction, Bergen guided the ship through the narrow waters hidden between shallow shoals and cays, until they came to a wide delta where countless strips of bare rock and islets surrounded them on either side.

The current pushed against them, forcing them to lower sail and use the combined strength of the oars and tiller to guide their ships safely through the delta. Their work was relentless and they rowed without pause as the sea vanished slowly behind them, leaving behind the Kattegat.

Within the hour, the land formations dwindled and they welcomed the calm waters. With the strength of sixty men, they pulled the ship upstream against the current. Rarely did they meet a strong wind that allowed them to raise sail. The ships curved around the land, making their way up and around the occasional island until they entered the Gautelfr where the current doubled.

The strakes creaked beneath the pressure until the boards buckled and the ships took on water. In massive groups that left no one immobile, they took up buckets and set to work prying up floorboards and bailing the excess water from within the hull. Only then did Kallan move.

Gathering up her skirts, she assisted the Ljosalfar as they bailed the water over the gunwale. Desperate to escape the flood, a pair of ship cats clambered, mewing, onto the mast fish, where blankets and chests and been hastily heaped as the deckhands proceeded to clear out water. The sudden clatter startled the ravens within their cage, adding a series of splintering squawks to the bustle and noise.

Steering closer to land where the current was milder, Bergen pulled the tiller against the bank until he ran the risk of running aground. The waters bombarded the ships, increasing their flow the farther upstream they rowed. There, the white waters of the ruthless rapids forced their course to end.

After ordering the ships to land, Bergen and Rune led their men to shore. A new energy encompassed the warriors as they moved to drop their oars and took up the collection of roller logs that had laid stationary for most of the voyage home.

Before Kallan could ask, two Ljosalfar hoisted a log from the trestles and passed it overhead to the next pair, who passed it along to those waiting on land. There, they positioned one log in place for the next log. With rehearsed precision, they laid the logs in rows before the ships while a handful of others lowered the yardarm then the masts and secured the rigging around the fore stern. Awed, Kallan watched as they synchronized their steps in time to Bergen, who barked his orders to haul as he took up a rope himself.

The logs rolled freely beneath the boat as they pulled their ships from the water to land. Water drained from the hull and the rigging clanked and clamored in time to the occasional cat mew while ship rats scurried freely. As soon as the last log rolled out from beneath the ship’s stern, a pair of men took up the log and raced it to the front of the ship, laying it down in position with barely enough time to run back to the stern where the next log lay waiting.

The next ship followed suit, and the next, until all six ships had been brought ashore, pulled by the rigging as they pushed their way along the river’s bank where a makeshift path had been worn with use.

“You do this often?” Kallan asked, unnaturally rigid as another pair of warriors ran to the fore stern with a log.

Rune walked along beside her as the caravan of beached ships creaked and complained beneath the weight of their waterless passage.

“Often enough,” he answered simply, batting a low hanging branch from his path. “The ships were built on land. When they are finished we roll them to the river. This is the first of seven trails between here and Gunir.”

Kallan shifted her attention just enough to catch Rune’s eye as he walked several steps behind their ship.

“Surely you can sail the rapids,” Kallan said, urging him on with a smirk. Even her jovial mood felt chafed and cold.

“The rapids, yes.” Rune stepped over a small boulder in his path. “The falls nearly three fathom high? No,” he said. “This landing is the last clearing before we’d be forced to turn back.”

Without further question, she followed quietly, turning to glance over her shoulder in time to spot Gunnar leading Astrid and Freyja alongside the black mare and two soldiers he had recruited to help with the horses. Kallan turned back to her ship, joining Rune in pulling back the low hanging branches as they made their way through the forest.

Slowly, the caravan pushed over the land, filling the wood with the whines of six longships as if in protest of their land-locked state. The late hours of the afternoon sun burned away and, in the early evening, when the men had grown deaf to the incessant creaking of keels, sudden, riotous cheers exploded at the sight of the quiet calm of a glassy lake. Lake Wanern was so wide that the horizon made up other side.

The Ljosalfar rolled the ships back into the water and heaved the logs into the trestles. All evidence of the river was gone. Gunnar returned the horses to the boats and the six groups of Ljosalfar climbed aboard once more. As Ottar took the tiller, Kallan nestled into her cluster of furs and blankets. The subtle sounds of water slapping against the strakes returned and the longships settled as if content to be in the water again.

The breeze welcomed them and they raised the masts and hoisted the yardarm, allowing their sails to billow against the wind. They sailed on through the wide waters of Lake Wanern over the black blue surface. And as the sun settled beyond the forests, they returned to shore, rolled out their beds, pitched their tents, and erected their soapstone kettles over the fire. In short time, the scent of elk wafted from the kettles and Bergen’s war-men, content to ignore the Dokkalfr who welcomed the solitude of a tent, bustled and laughed while exchanging mead and story over bowls of stew.

Inside the tent among the furs and bedrolls, Kallan hugged her legs to her stomach as it churned with hunger. Despite sitting hunched before the small fire she had quickly built in the tent’s center, Kallan shivered. She pulled her overcoat closer and brooded as her thoughts drifted to the night before when Rune had taken her face in his hands and kis— 

“Hi.” 

Kallan whipped around to Rune, who grinned. Kallan’s face and neck flushed red. She hugged her legs tighter and Rune settled himself beside her. With a bowl of stew in hand, he stretched his legs out in front of him and handed her his bowl.

“Slowly,” he eased as she gulped down the food. “You’ll vomit.”

With a final gulp, she handed the bowl back to Rune and hugged herself against the cold while staring into the fire.

“Thank you,” she said, sending a warm surge through Rune that relaxed him as he set the bowl down beside the fire.

In silence, they stared at the flames. Almost enjoying each other’s company.

“The temperature is dropping fast,” Rune said.

Kallan kept hugging her legs as Rune looked away, feigning interest in the tent’s wall. He inhaled deeply, held his breath, and braced for impact before speaking again.

“We’ll be sharing packs tonight.” 

Kallan stiffened as her face burned three shades of red.

“Everyone,” Rune said, “to keep warm.”

Before she could begin her protests, Rune was up and making his way to his bedroll.

“I will not!” she exclaimed.

“It’ll be cold,” Rune warned, dropping himself onto his claimed bed and unlacing his boots.

Kallan frowned. “I survived Jotunheim. I can survive this.”

With a hearty chuckle, Rune kicked his boots aside and slid in between his pile of furs and blankets. Still chuckling, he relaxed onto his back and laid his arm nonchalantly over his eyes in mock sleep.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

Rune grinned.

“You survived Jotunheim because I had you bunking with me.”

With bulging eyes, Kallan dropped her jaw.

“You—”

“You told her, huh?” Bergen interjected, pulling back the tent’s flap. Wearing just his trousers and boots, he made his way through the collection of beds. The humored lilt in his voice encouraged Kallan to tighten the grip around her legs and pull her overcoat closer as she grimaced miserably at Bergen.