Fire and Lies (43 page)
Authors: Angela Chrysler
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Inside the keep, Torunn barked her orders and drove the Ljosalfar to their work. No one paid mind to a slender woman with long, ebony hair and a single slender line that marred her right cheek bone. Unseen, she slipped through the Great Hall. Servants, hunched over their tasks, didn’t flinch. Warriors walked the halls as the woman ascended the steps to the second floor and up to the tower floor.
The guard on duty dozed, jerked himself awake, and failed to see the hem of a gown as the woman rounded the hall to the only occupied cell. There, Kovit hung, bleeding, broken, and half-dead.
With a creak the guard couldn’t hear, the woman pushed open the door, spilling light across the floor. Her bare feet grazed the stone as she drifted into the cell and came to stop before the Dokkalfr.
Disappointment filled her golden eyes as she stared at the mass of Kovit chained to the wall.
“This is how I am to find you,” she said.
Her soft voice awakened him, urging Kovit to raise his mangled face to Fand.
“Did you speak to her?” Fand asked, “Does the Drui know?”
Slowly, painfully, Kovit shook his head.
The answer seemed to please her as she exhaled and relaxed her shoulders.
“Very good,” she said, and the deep red of her lips curved into a gentle smile. “And then there was one.”
S
tanding in a foot of white that blocked out the afternoon sun, Rune peered through the white, his arrow notched in readiness. It was there, whatever it was that Rune had seen just beyond the snows.
He shifted his position, and followed the trail of prints into the wood. The snows that had started three days ago still fell thick and heavy along the East Road, making the journey back to Lorlenalin an arduous one. Less than an hour out from the White Opal, a surge of Seidr drew Kallan’s attention toward the Alfheim wood, and a tuft of fur from a fox tail caught Rune’s eye. After sending the caravan on ahead, Rune slipped into the forest.
Rune closed in on the orange light reflected in the snow at the end of the trail. He slowed, bringing his bow eye-level. Staring down his arrow’s shaft, he moved until he found his target. Just as he prepared to release the arrow, shock stayed Rune’s hand. There, seated contentedly in the snow playing with something in her hands, sat a child encompassed by fire she wore like skin. What Rune had mistaken for a tail were tufts of red hair set aflame by the fire that failed to consume the child.
The child turned her round face toward him. Her fox-like eyes gazed sweetly up at him. There was no doubt, seeing her there in the snow, her harmlessness, her gentle curiosity and innocence.
Slowly, to not startle the child, Rune lowered his bow and extended an open palm. She paused for a moment to look at his hand, almost playfully, then jumped with the agility of a fox and fled. In two great bounds, she was gone without trail or trace.
“Rune,” Kallan called from the East Road, forcing Rune to abandon his pursuit of the fox-girl.
“I’m here,” he called and made his way back to the road.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he emerged from the forest. “I sent you on with the caravan.”
“Exactly,” Kallan said, hoisting herself into the saddle. “You sent me on. I wanted to stay behind.” Kallan pulled her overcoat tighter against the cold.
“I don’t see Daggon agreeing to that easily,” Rune said.
“He didn’t. I used a spell and slipped away.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Rune asked.
Kallan shrugged. “We’re less than an hour from Lorlenalin. I know these trees.”
Rune pulled himself onto his horse alongside Zabbai.
“What was it?” Kallan asked.
Rune shook his head, unsure how to explain he was outwitted by a fox-child dressed in fire.
“Never seen anything like it,” he said instead and took up the reins. “It ran off before I could get a close enough look, but from what I could see, it looked like a fox.”
“There was Seidr,” Kallan said, giving Zabbai a gentle nudge.
Rune gave no reply as he matched Kallan’s pace and continued along the East Road toward the city.
Within moments, Kallan had resumed stretching her neck, eager to receive the city. Any moment, Lorlenalin’s peaks would appear on the horizon. Any moment, through the white winter, she would be home. But the snowfall was heavy and the cloud coverage thick.
Too eager to play with Seidr threads or chat idly with Rune, she nibbled her bottom lip and thought endlessly of that evening when she would see the children again.
Kallan pulled her overcoat closed. She thought of how much the children would have changed and how long the children may have fared without Eilif. She tried to ignore the sudden rise in tears and changed her thoughts to that night’s banquet when she could dive, mouth first, into a pie.
All the foods that Rune would have to try… I’ll have to send some back for Bergen—
The scent on the wind changed. Kallan wrinkled her nose.
We’ll have to set up trade between our cities. There is a lot to do to prepare for the new shipments that will come in from Gunir. I’ll have to work out the details regarding the imports and exports with Rune.
She felt her heart flitter at the thought of trading out some of the colored glasses in Gunir with the finer weaponry.
The winds blew strong, and this time, Kallan could not ignore the stench of smoke.
“Hold,” Rune said, pulling back on his reins. Kallan followed suit and peered curiously over the trees into the farthest horizon. Smoke and cloud billowed then rolled into each other. The wind rustled like wisps and spoke.
“Drui.”
A distant scream carried over the trees, and Kallan whipped her reins, sending Zabbai into a full gallop.
“Kallan!” Rune cried and sent his horse galloping behind her.
Kallan steered Zabbai up the mountain, through the last of the forest and, with a sharp whinny from Zabbai, Kallan pulled back unexpectedly on the reins. Where Livsvann Falls roared, ugly masses of red flames indulged themselves on Lorlenalin, turning the White Opal red. Kallan heard nothing. Not the shrill edge of her own voice or her feet striking the frozen ground as she ran through the snows toward the fire that had encompassed the city. She had seen fire like this once before, ages ago within the mountains of Svartalfaheim, when she was but a child.
The flames consumed the last of the screams. Behind her, Rune sent his horse up the road.
“Kallan!” he cried, but Kallan didn’t hear. All she saw was Lorlenalin burning.
“Drui,” the wind whispered.
But Kallan was screaming.
“Kallan!” Rune shouted and kicked the horse harder until he was riding beside Kallan. Leaning down, he slipped his arm around her and plucked her up from the road. She fought him, battled, and punched, desperate to fight her way into the city. Rune pulled back on the reins, and placed all his strength into holding Kallan from running into the fire.
“Daggon!” Kallan screamed.
A wall support cracked then bowed and broke.
“Daggon!”
The stones of Lorlenalin crumbled.
“Daggon!” she screamed, but the fire and the thunder of Livsvann’s Falls took her voice and she went unheard as the wind seemed to call to her.
Drui.
Kallan clawed at Rune’s arms, desperate to fight her way to the warrens, to the children, and to Daggon as she unleashed her final word, helpless to stop it.
“Daggon!”
995 years after Baldr…
Silence encompassed the world at the roots of Yggdrasil. In the distance, a single drop of moisture plunked into a shallow pool, sending off a series of high-pitched echoes amplified by the cave walls. Within its depths, through the darkest caverns, Nidhoggr slept.
Loptr raised his eyes to the snake secured above his head. The clear, thick venom swelled and slid to the tip of the fang where it began to pool. The next drop would soon fall. Loptr’s rage seethed and he tightened his jaw, ready for the searing pain that would come.
The thunder of hooves pounded the ground and Svadilfari released a snort.
In a series of fluid movements, Sigyn slid from the saddle, pulled the bundle from the side satchel, and turned to Loptr fastened beneath the snake. Throwing back the cloth, she revealed the silver sheen of Laevateinn’s elding steel blade secured by a tang buried in a hilt of black onyx and ordained with black pearls.
Just as Loptr caught sight of the sword, Sigyn lunged, blade drawn, and screamed.
“No!” Loptr roared, shaking the ground with his will to stop her.
And then there was silence.
Seidr light rolled down the silver blade from a hand that clamped Laevateinn’s blade. Sigyn’s breath beat the air.
There, standing over Loptr in flowing gowns of white, stood Danann peering down at Sigyn, Loptr, and Laevateinn.
Danann’s hair, as gold as the Seidr in her eyes, hung past her waist, and her lips curved into a smile.
A drop of venom slipped from the snake’s fang and Loptr’s flesh sizzled. The giant howled. Rocks sliced his spine as he arched his back against the stones. Losing her grip on the sword, Sigyn relinquished the weapon as her legs gave out and she fell, sobbing, in a heap on the cave floor. The searing pain of the venom on Loptr’s brow subsided and his howling faded until the caverns were quiet again.
“Sigyn.” Danann’s voice flowed over the jotunn.
With a sigh, Sigyn lifted her eyes to the Aes Sidhe and Danann tightened her grip on Laevateinn.
“I need your help again, Loptr,” Danann said, looking upon Loptr bound beneath the snake.
Sweat stained his brow and Loptr smiled as the next droplet formed.
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– Angela B. Chrysler
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Angela B. Chrysler is a writer, logician, philosopher, and die-hard nerd who studies theology, historical linguistics, music composition, and medieval European history in New York with a dry sense of humor and an unusual sense of sarcasm. She lives in a garden with her family and cats.
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