Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) (36 page)

Hyndla shook her head. “No one knows. If they watched, they cannot remember which way the Vala fled or how the Gothi followed. Nor can they find the tracks in the snow. As if they both vanished.”

She tipped her head back, resting it against the warm stone. “Vanadis deceives us still.”

“I fear it is so,” Hyndla said. “I fear—I fear what this means. If she will turn her power against us, make us slaves, what will follow? Bolthorn knew it would come to this, and Bolvarr warned us of the same.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He meant for me to learn what role the Vala played, but Vanadis would not take me to them and now it is too late.”

Sinmarra.
She formed the word, but it stuck in her throat and thickened her tongue. Arianna strangled a cry of frustration, her head aching along with her heart. Bolthorn. She must wait for Bolthorn to return, and then he could speak of it, even if she could not. “Did you tell the elders?”

“I tried,” Hyndla said. “But the words—”

Arianna pressed her lips together. “They know he is innocent. Could you speak of that much?”

“Yes.” And the word seemed to relieve her as much as it did Arianna. “Yes, they know we were deceived but not what comes!”

The boy appeared, his hands filled with snow, and Hyndla dumped it into Arianna’s hands, closing them around the cold. Her fingers grew numb, then her palms, blessed relief. Without the pain, it was so much easier to think, to focus. She closed her eyes and thought of Bolthorn, reaching through the bond they shared, following it home. As she had followed it to Fossegrim in the woods, unwitting, but this time she knew. She knew the pull of his heart, his body, his thoughts.

He was not far.

Arianna struggled to her feet, ignoring Hyndla’s protests. “I think I might find him. If there are any we can trust—Hrimthursar who never knew the Vala’s touch.”

The chamber was black, and though Bolthorn’s eyes recognized movement, there was not enough light to see more. Vanadis’s cry of frustration echoed against the stone. A shift in the shadows warned him before her weight landed against his chest, forcing him back. Her hand scratched and clawed, searching for his throat, but he caught her by the wrists before she drew blood. He could not let her draw his blood.

“You!” She howled. “Always it was you! I would have brought your people home. I would have made them elves again, if you would only die!”

Her teeth grazed his flesh, and he threw her from him, touching his cheek. His fingers came back damp. Blood. She had his blood. It must end quickly now. More quickly than he had wanted. To kill Vanadis, of all the elves, when she offered a peace with Sinmarra that would bring Ingvifreyr home…

“We have fought for generations to find redemption,” he said, searching for her in the dark. He could hear her heartbeat, her breathing, but it echoed off the stone, confusing his senses. He drew Gunnar’s dagger. “To receive it this way, at the cost of so many would only make monsters of us all.”

She hissed, and a shadow flickered at the corner of his eye. “Fool orc!”

He ducked beneath her arms, catching the flash of her eyes for aim, and brought the blade up. It jarred against her ribs before scraping by, slipping deep between them. The rasp of her breath told him it pierced her lung.

Her nails bit hard into his skin, holding the knife inside her body. He had not realized she was so strong, for he could not break free. Or perhaps it was the blood. His cheek burned, and his palms also. As if he had been raked with coals. The blade slid slowly from her ribs, guided by her hand. He could not move his arm at all.

The knife came free, and she turned it in his hand, his fingers closing around the hilt, drawing it down until the point touched his breast.

“No one will save you this time, Gothi.”

And then, with his own hand, she plunged it home.

Arianna gasped, falling to her knees in the snow. Grimnir caught her by the elbow, crouching beside her. She had not wanted him to come, but he would not listen. And now—her chest felt as though it had been broken, split apart, her heart burst.

“What is it?” he asked.

The other Hrimthursar went on. Two children, of all the village, who Hyndla could be certain had never bled. They followed the tracks neither she nor Grimnir could see, heading toward the rocks. A boulder, thick and rounded with ice, and a spire that leaned against it, jagged as a tooth. Bolthorn was behind the stone, hot blood spilling from his chest. It stuck to her skin, tearing her apart.

“In there,” she gasped. “He’s hurt.”

He’s dying.
She couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t believe them to be true. But her chest ached. So badly she could not feel the burns on her hands.

Grimnir helped her to her feet, and she leaned on his arm. But there was no in. Just a smear of blood on the face of the rock.

“The tracks end here,” Narvi said. “Elf and orc.”

“I need a knife,” Arianna said. “Quickly.”

Grimnir drew his, then hesitated. “Are you certain?”

It was hard to breathe, and Bolthorn’s heartbeat felt strange. Everything felt strange and black. “I must try.”

One clean stroke across her palm. She barely felt it for the burns and the pain in her chest. When she reached for the stones, she swayed, the edges of her vision black. Grimnir grasped her again to keep her from falling, and the rock was warm, buzzing beneath her fingers.

Bolthorn, lying upon his back, blood choking him. He couldn’t die. She wouldn’t let him die. Not for Vanadis. Not when they could not go on together. They had been parted for too long. If he would only live! She must make him live, for his people, for her, for their child…

The rocks yawned open and everything went black.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Arianna opened her eyes. Sunlight poured weak but welcome through the smoke hole in the turf roof above her, caressing her face. A red haired woman—no. She was an elf, with hair like flame. So blinding to look at, her eyes ached. And her chest. It felt as though a boulder pressed against her ribs. She could not feel Bolthorn’s heartbeat, and the absence made her stomach twist with fear.

“Bolthorn?” she rasped.

The elf stepped back and Arianna followed her gaze to a second bed. His skin was more grey than green, but his chest rose and fell, slow and even. “I have never known an orc so stubborn, but it serves him well now, while your heart beats for his.”

Some of the pressure left her chest, and her eyes closed, too heavy to keep open any longer. Bolthorn lived. He breathed beside her! “The others?”

“The Hrimthursar are freed.” A hand touched her cheek, cool against her skin. “Vanadis could not sustain the spell and live.”

Vanadis. If she had lived and Bolthorn died—but he hadn’t. He lived and breathed and— “What of Eistla?”

“Rest, Gythja,” the elf said. “Your heart beats for three.”

The second time she woke, Fossegrim sat at her side, lines of worry and exhaustion carving canyons in his face. He drummed his fingers on the smooth knob of his walking stick and smiled.

“Clever of you to fish him out of that rock, girl. The Vala couldn’t find him, though they were called, and couldn’t reach him either while he was locked inside with that witch. If you hadn’t brought Grimnir to muscle him back into the snow, he’d have died for sure.” Fossegrim’s lips twitched. “Not that he wouldn’t have given the Ancestors what for along the way.”

“Vanadis thought I was your tool,” she murmured. “Said I was protecting him.”

“Mm.” Fossegrim’s gaze sharpened on her face, his eyes narrowing. “She never did understand how these things worked. And the vows you exchanged when you mixed your blood… Well, most orcs and elves have more sense than to bind their heartbeats together. If you’d had a proper wedding, the vows you made would have been much lighter. Much less likely to kill you both, for that matter. ‘Together or not at all!’” He snorted. “Can’t quite decide which one of you was fool enough to utter that oath first. Bolthorn probably, gallant dolt, and you none the wiser.”

She half-smiled. “He wanted me to trust him.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t complain too loudly,” he grumbled. “Saved you both more than once, and the Ancestors had their reasons, to be sure. Only wish I’d known to warn you what was coming. Not everything Vanadis did can be willed away so easily as the spells she set and I fear—I fear the Ancestors have more to ask of you, girl. And Bolthorn, too, when he’s well enough to shoulder the weight of it. Too soon, if you ask me, whenever it is.”

“Grandfather Fossegrim,” she said, before he could go on again. “What of Eistla?”

He grunted, sitting back. Where he had found more than a bench in the Hrimthursar village, she was not sure. His fingers tapped against his stick. “Vardrun said you’d asked.”

Her throat tightened. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“She’s joined the Ancestors,” he admitted, his voice low and gentle. “But there’s hope yet, Princess. He might not have his brother’s luck for survival, but Bolvarr lives all the same.”

“How can you be certain?”

Fossegrim grinned. “Waterfalls whisper, my dear. And brook horses talk. Now get some rest, hm? For Bolthorn’s sake. He’s looking a little blue with all the excitement.”

And then they were alone in the hut. Starlight filtered through the smoke hole, and Arianna sat up cautiously. Her chest itched more than ached, and so did her fingers, pink and tender, but no longer blistered with burns.

Bolthorn lay nearby, his body still. She stumbled her way to his side, needing to see—needing to know what he had suffered with her eyes and feel the rise of his chest beneath her hands.

Heavy bandages wrapped around his ribs and across his breast, hiding the broken marks of the Gothi over his heart. She trailed her fingers along the edges of the fabric that bound him, but she did not need to pull it away to know what lay beneath. Her father’s knife had punctured his lung, then scraped across his heart. Blood had filled his chest, his lung, causing him to choke instead of breathe. But for all that, his pulse had not faltered. Her pulse had not faltered. She had shared his death, but he had shared her life until Grimnir had carried them from the cave and the Vala found them.

Bolthorn’s hand closed over hers, his grip weak, and she lifted her eyes to his scratched face, meeting his glowing gaze. His lips curved. “Arianna.”

Everything blurred, and she knelt beside him, pressing her face to the bare skin of his shoulder, breathing in his warmth, his life until she steadied. “I thought you had died.”

“Shh,” he said, his fingers tangling in her hair. “It is done, now.”

But it wasn’t done. Not if Sinmarra’s agreement with Vanadis still stood. Not with Bolvarr missing beyond the mountain, lost, captured, held. “Hyndla said Bolvarr asked it of her,” she remembered. “He asked her to learn who the other Vala served.”

Bolthorn half-snorted, too weak to do more. “I do not wish to hear of Hyndla, Princess. Not while your heart still beats for mine. For our child. Tell me you are well, both of you.”

“We are well,” she promised, letting him urge her up. She slipped beneath the furs to curl carefully against his body. “We are well and you will live, and the rest will wait until you are healed.”

He sighed when she had settled beside him, his eyes closing. “I have missed your warmth.”

She pillowed her head against his shoulder and felt his chest rise, then fall beneath her hand. In the dark, he did not look so gray as he had before, and lying at his side, her heart did not seem to struggle so much for each beat. They had been apart for so long. Too long. But never again. That much, she was certain, they had won.

“We go on together,” she said softly. “We three.”

Bolthorn kissed her forehead. “Always.”