Mistress of the Wind (14 page)

Bjorn threw up a wall of fire between them, stretching across the whole of the path. He felt the immediate push of magic as the yggren countered him. Searching for a way through the flames.

There was no way through, but he wondered how long he could hold the barrier against the battering of its power.

Then, without warning, the yggren launched off the mountain.

“Shhhreeeee.”

Its scream echoed off the cliffs as it fell, but Bjorn had seen its eyes, its bloodlust, and was not fooled. He collapsed his fire wall and braced, ready for the yggren to return from some ledge or foothold below, but even though he’d expected it, he flinched as it shot up like an arrow, its trajectory slamming it into Bjorn, pinning him to the rocks.

He roared, fighting its thin, wiry strength with his weight and bulk. Desperation allowed him to punch through its magical buffer, flick a tiny flame onto its leg.

“Shhhreeee.” Its cry deafened him. The pain of fire making it wilder, fiercer. Undeterred.

It leant in, its arms crossed against Bjorn’s throat, its feet digging in to the hard rock of the path. Bjorn felt the first flick of panic. Felt the first tongue of fire singe his coat as it crawled up the yggren’s leg.

If the yggren would not yield, would not give in to the flames, they would both burn.

* * *

Astrid rode the wind, and as she rode, an army gathered behind her.

A horn had called from behind, faint through the whistling in her ears. Since then, each place she passed, each time her feet touched the forest floor, a sprite or vedfe seemed to step out of a tree, a rock, or the streams that tumbled through the forest, to run alongside her.

At first she’d thought Jorgen had called them to stop her, but as she looked, startled, into the eyes of a rock nymph, he’d sketched a salute, and begun running at her side.

Every time she leapt, arms holding her cloak out like a pair of wings, she left them behind, but a quick glance over her shoulder showed her they still followed, a forest-hued retinue in grays, browns and greens, silent and strangely intimidating. Their beautiful faces were serious and their feet swift.

Jorgen said he had others he could call on, and he had not lied.

She saw the wind carried her toward a mountain on the far east end of the forest, its steep cliffs and jagged ridges just discernible in the distance. It seemed impossibly far away.

“Hurry,” she pleaded. The wind had not spoken again since it whispered to her in the clearing, and she sensed it was expending great energy in lifting her as she ran. It need only have enough strength to get her to Bjorn, and once there, aid her in saving him. She didn’t care how long the walk back was.

They must just get there in time.

* * *

Bjorn fought for his life, desperate as the heat singed him. He clawed at the yggren, trying to push it away as the flames took hold of it, licked their way higher up its body.

It could not end this way.

He’d tried already to douse the flames, but he could no longer get through the shield of ancient magic the yggren threw over them both. It wanted to die. And for some reason, it wanted Bjorn to go with it.

It would not succeed.

With a roar that echoed off the cliffs, he twisted in the yggren’s hold, every muscle, every sinew in his body straining to throw off the living torch hanging on with steel-like fingers.

He could not shake it and the pain of the fire made him half-mad with panic.

A wind sprang up, he could feel it against his fur, and then a gale was blowing, coming out of nowhere.

“Fire to the head,” he heard a voice—
Astrid—
call out, and before his eyes he saw a flame scooped off the yggren’s burning body by the hand of the wind, and thrown into its face.

With a scream, it finally let go, unable to endure the pain. As it stepped back, the wind, as with Sigurd, breathed on the fire and in a moment, the yggren was a pyre of flame.

Bjorn fell, his sides heaving as he fought for air, fought the pain and fought the fear. Astrid was out of the palace, exposed to danger again.

“Bear.”

He felt her alight next to him as if she were a bird, landing from the air, and she knelt beside him, smoothing his fur, her eyes wide with horror.

“Can you help him?” she cried to someone behind her, and he lifted his head a little way, and saw a stone sprite running up the path, the pale gray of her skin, the silver of her hair, making her swim in and out of focus against the rocks.

“Only Jorgen has enough power for that,” she said, her voice the soft clink of pebbles against each other.

“Then we carry him down to Jorgen. We mustn’t waste a moment.”

Bjorn wanted to ask Astrid how she thought she could carry him two steps, let alone down the mountain to Jorgen, but she scrambled to her feet, and he was shivering too much to get the words out.

“If we help, can you try to lift him?” she whispered, and he knew from her tone she was talking to the wind.

The air strengthened around him, its cold fingers forcing under him, and he lifted a little.

“Please help me,” Astrid called to the stone sprite, and he felt her hands coming under him. They were going to carry him with the wind. He would laugh at the idea, if he could just stop shaking, could open his eyes. They seemed weighed down with rocks.

But then another set of hands took the strain, and another, lifting him to shoulder height, and they began moving down the path, the wind a tight whirlwind beneath him, keeping him stable.

How many sprites and vedfe had Astrid managed to rope into this crazy scheme?

He at last forced his eyes open a crack, and the sight that met him snapped them open wider. He was surrounded by a throng of vedfe, two hundred at least, taking turns to carry his weight, as they moved off the mountain and back into the forest.

Astrid alone would not be replaced, holding him up near his shoulder. Her cheek was smudged with blood, and he realized with shock it was his own.

“Set him down.” The bellow from the path before them could only belong to Jorgen.

“By the gods, Bjorn. Do you want to kill yourself and do us all in? Do you want to break the balance?”

He was lowered slowly to the ground, laid to rest on the forest path as light as an autumn leaf.

“What happened?”

Bjorn wanted to answer, but Jorgen was not looking at him, but Astrid.

“Another yggren. Bjorn set it alight, and it clamped itself to him, trying to burn them both. It was trying to strangle him while they burned.”

“What madness is going on with the yggren?” Jorgen knelt beside him and placed his hands on either side of Bjorn’s neck wound.

“My friend, you test my powers to the limits.”

“Will try to help,” Bjorn gasped out, but he knew in his weakened state, he would be of little use.

“Form a chain,” Jorgen called out, and Bjorn saw the vedfe line up, each one touching the shoulder of the other, the first in line touching Jorgen.

They were sharing what power they had with their leader, and he was giving it all to Bjorn. Bjorn felt it flare within, felt the soothing touch of energy as the pain in his burnt legs and chest receded, as his neck slowly healed.

It stopped long before it needed to, but it was enough. Enough to get him on his feet and back to the palace. Enough to give him time to heal himself.

“I am deeply in your debt.” Bjorn struggled shakily to his feet.

“As we are in yours, my lord,” one of the vedfe answered, and suddenly every one but Jorgen and Astrid was gone.

“Can you walk?” The flecks of blood on Astrid’s cheeks were in stark contrast to her white face. Her voice shook. “Shouldn’t we carry him back?”

It annoyed him that she turned to the vedfe, even though Jorgen could barely stand himself since pouring his power into Bjorn’s healing.

They were so exposed. Neither he nor Jorgen could protect her should Norga choose this moment to strike. If her spies were watching, they’d be foolish not to take this opportunity.

Come to that, what was Astrid doing out of the palace? His lady had a death wish.

Jorgen must have seen his eyes, because he swallowed nervously.

“Can you walk back?” he asked.

“I can.” Bjorn struggled for control. There would be time for arguments later. Besides, his throat hurt too much to speak. He had to whisper. “Astrid get back to the palace. We’ll follow as quickly as possible.”

She looked at him with astonishment. “I am not going back alone. I just raced across the length of the forest to save you.”

“I can’t protect you.” He swayed on his feet, his teeth clenched.

“No. But I can protect you,” she replied, her eyes snapping as angrily as his own.

“Please.” Fighting her, forcing her, was not the point. He was too weak to do it anyway, and it seemed she had Jorgen well and truly under her thumb. “Please.”

“But you are hurt . . .”

“Astrid. Please. I need fear nothing from Norga, whereas you . . .”

She spun in a circle, her fists clenched, her robe swirling around her. “We go together. I’ve just spent the last hour worried you were dead, and now you send me off? No.”

She was so angry she vibrated like a bowstring after the shot. His blood marked her brow and she flung back her head—a warrior princess.

“Keep close, then.” His words were resigned. “We are all vulnerable.”

“The wind is tired,” she agreed, and lifted out an arm, moving her fingers as if she ran them through water. He saw her start at the blood on her hand, and her whole body shuddered. With a cry, she flung herself to her knees next to him, burying her face in his fur.

“I didn’t know what was happening. I was so worried.” She drew back her head and he saw tears streaming down her face. “If I’d been a moment later. . .”

He’d have been dead.

“Come,” he said quietly, nuzzling her, even though for the first time in a long time he wanted to roar until his throat bled that he was trapped in this bear body. He wanted to scoop her up, hold her close.

Carry her home in his arms.

Chapter Twenty-one

I
t hurt to see Bjorn walking as if on thorns. His every step was tortured as they neared the palace. Jorgen mumbled a farewell as they reached the treeline, startling Astrid.

She kept forgetting he was there.

She wondered, in one of the strange meanders her mind kept taking on this interminable journey, if Jorgen could set foot out of the forest.

She called out a goodbye, unsure if he’d gone or was still standing there.

Bjorn stumbled ahead of her, his eyes on the ground in front of him, just getting one foot in front of the other.

The sun edged toward the horizon, lighting the dark gray storm clouds to the west with dramatic oranges and reds, and the long shadows made the last part of her journey up the rocky path treacherous.

Bjorn was already at the palace entrance, raising a weary paw to the stone.

When had she fallen so far behind?

The sound of stone grinding on itself galvanized her. The mountain was opening.

She tripped, scraped her hands, and was on her feet and running again before her tired muscles could protest.

Bjorn, leaning against the rock face, collapsed through the entrance as the door slid past him.

Her heart felt lodged in her throat by the time she reached the opening. She couldn’t get enough of the thin, cold air into her lungs.

Blood smeared the floor where Bjorn had fallen, half in and half out of the mountain, and she leapt over his legs. She needed to pull him in.

The door began to rumble shut, the grinding of rock on rock ominous. Astrid grabbed hold of Bjorn’s fur, bending her knees and tugging with all the strength fear gave her.

He slid a fraction and stopped, and gritting her teeth, she hauled at him again. He seemed stuck to the floor.

The stone door hit him mid-back and began pushing him before it.

With a cry of pure panic, Astrid grabbed a back paw in each hand, using Bjorn’s forward momentum to swing him around. If she didn’t get him in before the door closed, his legs would be crushed.

Slowly but surely his body slid inward, and with an echoing thunk, the entrance closed.

Her knees gave way, slamming onto the granite floor, and she shuddered, the pain out of all proportion to the injury.

They were in complete darkness.

Bjorn cried out, making her jump. A hoarse, agonized cry that made every hair on her body rise. A strange rush of air—not her kind—swirled where he lay.

Dark magic.

The sun must have set.

She knelt next to him, fear-stricken, imagining him change from bear to man. She heard his nails scrabble on the stone floor, his body twist in pain, and shoved her knuckles in her mouth. Bit down.

What could she do?

Again she felt the brush of ice-cold evil on her face and then sensed it dissipate into the air.