He had dealt with the trolls and with a witch who might have brought forth a Wanderer, thought Roric.
Wanderers and Hearthkeepers he could deal with as well.
The fire flared up, showing them a low, dark tunnel opening on the far side of the room, beyond the witch’s weaving.
Roric felt Karin take a deep breath as they crossed the room toward it.
“One more thing,” said the witch, so quietly that for a second Roric thought he was hearing his fears, not an actual voice.
He stopped but did not turn around.
They were almost to the far wall; in two seconds they could be in the tunnel, much too narrow for the witch to fit in behind them.
“We may not be able to hear the thoughts of mortals, but I do not want you to think, Roric No-man’s son, that I overlook the obvious.
I know what is dearer to you than life, than gold, than honor, even than knowledge of your father.
If I do not ask it of you, well, my hope is still to reunite the immortals, but how can I do that if I put even mortals asunder?”
Roric stood silent for a moment, thinking this over.
Karin was rigid in his embrace.
Then, “Thank you,” he said formally, took two quick steps, and thrust Karin into the low tunnel.
Again it was pitch dark.
They crawled rapidly, his nose inches behind her feet.
There was dead silence behind them.
He could hear Karin taking deep, ragged breaths, but she kept going.
This tunnel was smooth, slightly twisting, but with no side passages.
It sloped gently downwards before them.
“I found that an easy bargain,” said Roric as though casually, not wanting to admit how terrified he had been of losing her.
“I would probably never have known my father anyway.”
“So I gather we need not fear Gizor will be waiting for us at the bottom?” said Karin over her shoulder, just as casually.
“Not unless this leads to Hel,” said Roric.
He kept his head down to keep from bumping it on the roof.
“I did not intend to kill him, Karin, even though he has long sought my death.
But he challenged me and he would not yield.”
She did not answer.
The tunnel led steadily downward until at last they could hear the faint sound of breaking surf before them.
“If I could only see the daylight,” Karin gasped.
“We’re almost there,” he said encouragingly, not knowing if it would be day or night when they emerged.
“You’re doing very well.
I’m right behind you.”
And then he
did
see daylight, a lightening beyond Karin’s crawling form, and tasted the tang of salt air.
“Right into the sea!” he called.
“If the witch is right, we’ll dive into the Wanderers’ realm—and if not, we could use a bath!”
The tunnel took a last turn, and the roof rose.
Karin pushed herself somewhat shakily to her feet, blinking against the light.
They were in a deep crevice, its rocky floor washed by the waves, and its jagged opening looking out on the foaming sea.
And standing in that opening were two people:
a man with a scarred lip that gave his face a permanent sneer, and a tall, black-haired woman who looked at them with bitter green eyes.
“So you survived the dragon,” said King Eirik.
His expression might have been meant as a smile.
“What a pleasant surprise to see you again, Princess.
When we found the entrance to the Witch’s cave turned solid, we thought there must be someone up there—someone it might be worth waiting to see.
Now that you’re here you can show us the way to the wealth and booty of the Wanderers’ realm.”
3
Valmar put his back against the woman’s as figures emerged from the woods on every side.
His sword sang of high challenge and defiance.
These creatures no longer had misty outlines but showed themselves as they were:
hollow, cloven-hoofed, naked beneath their helmets and shields, dangling oversized genitals before them.
“This is your last chance to yield, Valmar!” one called.
“Don’t let him yield,” said another.
“He’s got a renegade Hearthkeeper!
She’ll be weakened from contact with a mortal—let’s kill him and take her for ourselves!”
“Trust men,” Valmar heard an amused voice at his ear, “to try to make something just like themselves—and have it come out even worse.”
The swords and axes these creatures wielded had no mistiness at all about them.
For another moment they still hesitated, leering and whispering among themselves.
Valmar, watching and trying to keep his breathing regular, thought that this would be his first real fight.
He shifted his grip slightly on the singing sword, thinking of his weeks of training at the Wanderers’ manor, remembering everything Gizor had taught him but also remembering how easily his father had beaten him that time.
Suddenly with a cry the creatures charged.
There were at least twenty of them, coming at them from all directions.
The woman laughed, throwing up her shield before her.
Valmar, bracing himself, thought that it was all very well to laugh at danger when one was immortal.
Then the creatures were on them.
Valmar felt almost detached, watching himself fighting coolly and calmly, landing blow after blow as his sword sang gloriously, turning, parrying, deflecting a stroke on his shield, anticipating the next stroke, driving in for a sharp thrust when an opponent was off balance for even a second.
And then he realized he was actually killing them.
Where a few seconds before a mob of leering empty men had rushed at him, the ground at his feet was now littered with broken bits and pieces, looking not even vaguely human.
He felt panic and nausea rising in him, but more creatures were coming, and a second’s glance behind him showed that the woman, at any rate, was not killing those attacking
her.
Now he lashed out wildly, almost forgetting to protect himself with his shield.
He did not want them to touch him, he did not even want them near him, he wanted all their twisted, hollow, inhuman forms far, far away.
He was not fighting for the Wanderers or for the woman at his shoulder, but to protect himself from nightmare.
“Valmar!”
He felt a grip on his arm.
“Don’t
chase
them!
They’re leading you into ambush!”
He had not realized until that second that he
was
chasing them, that he had been about to run across the clearing with his sword high and a death-cry on his lips.
Because they had fallen back, those few who were left, retreated hastily toward the trees.
She stared at the dry broken pieces of bone and skin—but could they actually be bone and skin?—that littered the ground at his feet.
“I did not know,” she said in a very small voice, “that anything could be killed here.”
Valmar ripped off his helmet, feeling sicker than ever.
He had just killed over a dozen immortals.
The Wanderers had told him he had awesome powers here, but they had certainly led him to believe that he was the only being in this land who could suffer death.
They had told him they wanted the “third force” driven back, made to give up their attacks on the lords of voima, but they had said nothing about killing them.
And if these creatures really were the Wanderers’ own creation—
He grabbed the woman’s hand.
“Let’s get out of here.”
He ran through the woods, dragging her behind him, until they emerged at the track where his white stallion waited where he had left it.
He tossed the woman onto the horse’s back and leaped on behind her.
Running from nightmare, running from the destruction of the service he had tried to offer the lords of earth and sky, he kicked the stallion forward.
They galloped down the hill away from the trolls’ manor, across rivers he did not even try to count, the terrible unending sunset blinding their vision and the wind whipping in their faces, until after an hour the stallion ceased galloping, then even trotting.
He slid from the horse’s back, pulling her down beside him.
“I know you’re not meant for me,” he gasped, unfastening the clasps on her mail and pulling it off with shaking fingers.
“I know you were meant to serve the Wanderers, until somehow you became separated from them.
But I don’t care.
I must have you.
They set me a test and I’ve failed utterly.
I cannot fail any worse by taking you.”
“I am
not,
” she told Valmar a little testily, “‘meant’ for the Wanderers.
We Hearthkeepers are separate, independent, made to govern in our own right.
We once ruled earth and sky, and though our powers have long been lessened, we are sure they are fated to return once the time of the Wanderers passes.
And this time we intend to make sure that they do not ever end our rule again.”
They lay with their heads shaded by a tree, its leaves green but withered, and their feet in the sun.
The white stallion grazed nearby.
She kept wanting to talk.
Valmar, feeling feverish, his heart fluttering, did not want to talk, especially now that desire was beginning to burn in him again.
If he allowed himself to think about how he had failed the Wanderers he would break down completely and sob like a boy, but when he possessed her all those thoughts were very far away.
“But since you’re showing no sign of trying to return now to your Wanderers,” she continued with the hint of a laugh, “does that mean that you agree to leave them and serve me instead?”
He rolled on top of her and silenced her with his mouth on hers.
He did not want her to remind him again of the quarrels among the immortals, of the dire need of the lords of voima that had led them to turn in their desperation even to a mortal, even to him.
He only wanted to feel her body against his and her arms tight around him.
He fell asleep at last, utterly exhausted, clasping her in a final effort to find forgetfulness.
He slept so deeply that no nightmares troubled him, until he rolled in slumber so that his face was toward the sun and the low red light found its way through the shriveled leaves and made images on the insides of his eyelids.
He sat up, digging at his eyes with the heels of his hands.
She lay a short distance away, comfortably relaxed but with her eyes open.
“If more Hearthkeepers knew of the capacities of mortals,” she said with a languorous smile, “more human men would find themselves with immortal wives.”
He rose without answering and walked a short distance to where a stream cut across the meadow.
He dipped his whole head in, then splashed cool water over himself.
He no longer felt like sobbing, but his failure was a dull ache he thought he could never overcome.
And his desperate attempts to find solace in a woman’s embrace now seemed shameful, unmanly.
He might not serve the Wanderers anymore, but he also could not meekly offer his “capacities” to a woman’s service.
He stood up, shaking wet hair from his eyes, knowing what he had to do.
His back toward her, he found his clothes and slowly started putting them on.
“When you were so intent on serving your Wanderers,” she said behind him in good-natured tones, “and I thought I could never seduce you from them, I should have returned to the other Hearthkeepers.
Instead, I found
myself
with all my feelings changed, and for a mortal!”
Valmar paused in pulling on his tunic, wondering what she could be talking about, then shrugged.
It did not matter.
“So I thought if I could not have you for us, I could still have you for
me.
But maybe I was too quick to admit defeat!
Your Wanderers will not want you now, after you have killed their creation and run away with me.
But the Hearthkeepers still want you!
You are needed, Valmar Hadros’s son.”
He carried his shield and sword to the stallion.
Someone had unsaddled him and rubbed him down.
Had he done so?
He had no memory of it, but then his memories of the last twelve hours were very confused.
Perhaps she had done it while he slept.
He put on the saddle blanket and saddle, then paused in tightening the straps to wonder if he ought to offer to take her somewhere.
But then he shrugged again.
She was an immortal being who belonged in this land where it was quite clear he had never belonged.
She seemed capable of appearing wherever she wanted; let her appear by herself back with the other Hearthkeepers.