Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (26 page)

Pale daylight lit the swirling squalls of snow, making them glisten like magical whirlwinds before they parted from the path to occasionally reveal their destination. Great Sontok loomed in the distance, a dark shadow of stone separating Rimian from the unoccupied, lower Edgelands. They had not yet come upon the couriers or the refugees, but Logren reasoned they’d likely done the smart thing and made camp in the mountain pass. On the ledge where they’d camped the night Logren and his men swooped in and saved them from the Hunters after they’d been exiled, all that remained of his people would be shielded from the harsh weather, their position held aloft from the wild animals, goblins and trolls that desperately combed the tundra in search of weak prey.

Whenever his nervous stomach clenched tight as a fist inside him, Frigga would ride closer, turning a warm, tentative smile in his direction and making the weight of the world lift away.

Do not worry, my love
, she spoke to his heart.
We will find your sister
.

As much as he wanted to share her faith, he struggled with the notion, with his own guilt for purposely leaving his sister behind, for putting their little brother’s needs so far above everyone else’s he’d torn their whole family apart.

To make matters even more complicated, his thoughts were equally with Finn, stretched between his siblings until he felt thin and exhausted. When not in Frigga’s arms, his mind lingered on all the awful things he could not protect his brother and sister from, things the so-called gods chose for them.

Across the space between them, he found her eyes, calm blue, reassuring, filled with so much love he took comfort in her nearness and allowed it to wash away his fears.

Neither of them slept much, preferring instead to exhaust the limits of their newly forged bond only to discover there were none. Even as he’d dozed in the comfort of her arms, feeling more at peace than he’d ever felt in his life, the slightest shift of her body, the gentle touch of her fingers stirred him from rest and made him want her again. She would lift her leg over his, edge her body closer and spur him on until the beast beneath his skin was nearly raging with desire anew.

Even then, with the very shadow of doom hanging over his head, he wanted her. He could get lost in her arms, in her eyes, and forget for just a few moments that everything he’d ever known was gone.

A powdery layer of dry snow swept across the road into the mountain, making for treacherous climbing with their horses. By midmorning the pass became so narrow they were forced to dismount and travel single file along the slick, rocky path. The led the horses into the passage. Determined to reach the survivors, Logren drove them onward without stopping, without even looking back when one of his men slipped on the ice and would have lost his footing had it not been for his tight hold on his horse.

At first it baffled Vilnjar how dedicated Logren was to the cause. They were not his people—merely a shadow of the place he’d come from. Few accepted him or his mother, save for those closest to Rognar. His being there defined the man in ways Viln had not imagined. Despite his arrogance, Logren was a man of action, much like his father before him, dedicated to the preservation of their people, all of their people. And try as he might to deny it, the people of Dunvarak were U’lfer; they were all that remained.

They didn’t reach the encampment until well after midday.

Logren arrived at the open cavern platform first, Vilnjar scanning over his broad shoulder at the huddled survivors for signs of his sister. The thread of hope he barely clung to diminished the minute he realized Ruwena was not among them.

Grondr Grey Wolf and his young daughter, Magret, rose to meet him, the Grey Wolf’s dazed eyes brightening at the sight of a familiar face.

“Vilnjar,” he gasped, hobbling over and throwing his strong arms around the man and squeezing so tight he could barely breathe. It was comforting, seeing a familiar face he’d never thought to see again. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, I tell you.”

“Grondr,” he began to withdraw, scanning the faces of the other survivors hunched near the small fire. One of them was a fellow council member named Nadon Well-Thought. Nadon’s face also seemed to light up when he saw Vilnjar among their rescuers.

The old man ambled toward him almost desperately, his dark brown eyes brimming with unshed tears, but as the Grey Wolf backed away and Nadon threw his grateful arms around Viln sobbing, he only stiffened, staring dazed at the other survivors.

Backing away, he felt Frigga’s warm comfort at his back, her hand lifting to rest on his shoulder as he searched the horrors etched into every wrinkle on Nadon’s face. “The others,” he began, swallowing the rising ache in his throat, “my sister?”

Nadon shook his head in despair, shifting his gaze downward in sadness. “Ruwena was not in the village when it was attacked.”

“What do you mean, she wasn’t in the village.” Every muscle in his body tightened with a terrifying rage not even Frigga’s closeness could calm. “Where was she?”

“I do not know,” he insisted. “She begged an audience with Cobin the day after you and the pup were exiled, but he refused her request, thinking to teach her a lesson in obedience.”

Vilnjar scoffed at the thought, a raw sound scraping through his tight throat. Rue was almost as disobedient as their brother, her temper far more dangerous than Finn’s had ever been. In her rage at having left her behind, there was no telling what she might have done.

“She escaped sometime during the night, aided by several of the Hunters from her pack. They killed the watchman left to guard her. Cobin sent trackers to hunt them down and bring them back for punishment, but the trackers never returned.”

Good
, he thought, it served them right, but that smug moment of victory was tainted with the dreaded realization she had taken the lives of men who might have protected their village, their people from destruction.

“We should have heeded Rhiorna’s warnings,” Nadon lamented in a near wail on the brink of hysterics. “We should have…”

“It’s too late for all the things that should have been done, Nadon.”

Vilnjar took a step back from the old man, his gaze passing over all that remained of his people. The women who’d survived were middle-aged, one of them clinging desperately to a teenage boy who’d been badly burned in the fires. The healer they’d brought with them passed across his view, kneeling to tend to the boy’s burns.

Nine. Nine U’lfer were all that escaped from Drekne. How could that be?

“I don’t suppose you thought to warn the people in Breken as you were fleeing for your lives?”

Nadon looked guiltily away, Grondr also refusing to meet the intense fury of Vilnjar’s disbelieving stare.

“There wasn’t time,” Nadon stammered. “They were so many.”

“How many?” Logren prompted.

“At least at thousand,” the old man’s body trembled as he shook head in dismay. “We…”

“Left an entire village of people behind, the last of our people, to see to your own bloody safety!” The rage building inside him wasn’t tempered, even when Frigga’s steadying hand lowered onto his shoulder from behind. “How selfish could you possibly be?” he shouted at Nadon, and the old man shrank back, trembling as his eyes widened to hear Vilnjar, who was always so compliant while they were on the council together, speak in such tones to an elder. “And my sister, you left her behind too. All because you were too stubborn to listen to the voice of reason when it spoke.”

“Vilnjar,” Frigga drew him away and he stumbled over the backward movement of his own feet. “If your sister escaped before the fires, then she is still out there. There may even be time enough to warn the people of Breken and help them to the safety of the mountains before it is too late.”

Even Logren didn’t seem to believe there was time enough to warn the small village of Breken, which lay only about thirty-five miles south of Drekne, but her suggestion and her nearness filled him with a sense of undeniable hope.

“Frigga,” Logren intervened, “we don’t have enough men to form a party and head into the Edgelands to face an army.”

“And Rue could be anywhere,” Vilnjar added, his voice so distant and lost in the final moments of his last conversation with Ruwena.

You can’t just leave me here. Let me come with you.

He denied her. Put his foot down because he thought he was doing what was best for her and their people. He’d set aside her safety to protect their brother.

“Ruwena is not the only one still out there,” Nadon spoke up. “Everyone scattered to the four winds when the fires started. The Grey Wolf and I fled south with everyone we were able to gather.”

“And there were no signs of the king’s army near Breken?” Logren mused, his fingers bristling through the long hairs of his bright red mustaches.

Nadon regarded Logren with suspicion, tilting his head and studying the young man as if he knew him, but couldn’t place his face in memory. “I know you,” he said after a long silence.

“You knew me, perhaps, when I was very small. My father was the man your council betrayed.”

“You…” he stammered in disbelief. “You are a son of Rognar?”

“I am
the
son of Rognar.”

“But… how are you… Rognar’s boy died in Vrinkarn...”

“And yet he stands before you, a man grown,” Vilnjar quirked his brow and sneered.

“How can that be?”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” Logren interjected. “What matters is we get your people to our city safely.”

“Then it is true?” Nadon marveled. “The things Rhiorna said…”

“Every last word.” Vilnjar was smug. He felt Frigga’s disapproval course through him and though he was instantly ashamed, he couldn’t hide his self-satisfaction.

He warned them in the hall, told them they were fools not to heed counsel even he had trouble believing, but too much happened in that time, so many things that changed his mind. Rhiorna summoning the spirit of their god, the whirling essence of it passing from the seer’s dying body and into Lorelei.

“I have seen things since that night, prophecies she spoke of come to pass, and among them lies a city to the south of these mountains where our brothers and sisters wait to welcome you among them.”

“But how can that be?”

“It is a miracle we can discuss in greater detail another time,” Logren said. “Tell me, are you sure these were King Aelfric’s men who burned your city to the ground?”

“They carried two banners,” the Grey Wolf spoke up, looking between the two of them as if he’d seen a ghost come to life right before his eyes. “Aelfric’s Crown of Flame and another I have never seen before.”

“What did it look like?”

“Blue and silver, a castle on the sea with three crested stars above each tower.”

“Hofft,” Logren nodded.

“Rhiorna’s warnings come to pass,” he lamented, remembering his final conversation with her before they were cast out. Guilt and self-loathing gripped him at his very core, making his stomach feel weak and nauseous. “Lorelei’s betrothed joined forces with Aelfric and marched into the Edgelands to take her back. If I only…”

“What?” Logren turned a disbelieving glare upon him. “If you only stayed behind, you alone could have stopped the inevitable? You are one man, Vilnjar.”

“Logren is right, Vilnjar,” Frigga’s hand on his arm was a conflict between warmth and bitter scolding. “If you stayed, this would still have happened, and you would be counted now among dead.”

His guilt pained her almost as much as it did him, stoking the fire of her anger with him for thinking his death might have changed something.

“Hofft and Leithe likely make the journey south, in search of my sister.” Logren crossed stiff arms over his chest. “Did you pass their encampment, old man?”

“Aye. We skirted east around it, barely managing to escape the camp they set up in the empty fields outside of Drekne. We nearly ran into their sentries because the boy was so badly burned, we had to carry him between us and he slowed us down.” Nadon glanced toward the young man beneath the healer’s touch, a flash of guilt flaring in his eyes. “We did not linger, but made haste to Great Sontok, hoping to outrun them and find the city Rhiorna spoke of.”

“The city you didn’t believe existed,” Vilnjar rolled his eyes.

Ignoring his scorn, Logren promised, “We will take you to the city your seer spoke of.” His amber eyes flitted across the faces of the weary survivors. “We brought enough horses to make the journey back as quickly as possible, but the wounded will slow us. We should not linger here, but leave immediately and get everyone back to the city where it is safe.”

“Safe?” Vilnjar nearly choked on that word.

Logren did not disagree, but lowered his head as he mumbled, “For the time being. Rimian is a treacherous, untraveled land, my old friend. You have seen firsthand for yourself how difficult the terrain is to navigate if you do not know the way. Had we not met with you and led you through the mountain pass and to our city, you would not have lasted a fortnight in these lands.”

“That is true,” he agreed, “but we were only three. We speak of an army, a well-practiced legion of men who will not stop until they find what they are looking for. And what if they have magic users of their own? Would you see them march straight into your city and destroy all you have built there because of a single girl?”

Deep, rich laughter followed that question, Logren shaking his head. “If they can even find our city, I would love to see them try to get inside. We have the one thing King Aelfric fears above all others, the very thing you’ve mentioned: mages.”

“We know nothing of what this prince from Hofft brings to Aelfric’s army. A handful of mages against…”

“Magic has been outlawed in Aelfric’s kingdom since before you and I were born,” he reminded him. “And Hodon’s proposal for an alliance with the Alvarii went out the same time your letters were sent to the U’lfer.”

“A proposed alliance will not save us. The elves must first agree, and why would they?”

“We must have faith, Vilnjar,” Logren said. “I know the gods have not given us much, but the moment our faith in them wanes…”