C. Dale Brittain (58 page)

Without a final word for him, without a final kiss, Karin plunged into darkness.
 
She had seen his face, alight with a berserk fury mingled with joy, and her heart turned to ice.

Valmar seemed to recover from his blank apathy as they crawled, side by side, into blackness.
 
“There are faeys near my father’s castle?
 
And we may be in their tunnels?”

But Karin did not answer.
 
She was listening to the shouts and the sounds of battle behind them.
 
Eirik’s men too must have come down the cliff.
 
Unless Roric retreated into the cave, he would be hopelessly outnumbered, captured or killed—and she did not think he planned to retreat.

It seemed as though they had crawled a very long time, on a surface that now felt smooth under hands and knees.
 
Karin realized the stream no longer ran beside them.
 
She paused and lifted her head, listening, but now there was only silence behind them.
 
Her eyes ached from trying to see in darkness, and when she first saw the green glow ahead of them she thought it was her imagination.

But it disappeared when she closed her eyes, then reappeared when she opened them.
 
The rift between the realms of voima and mortal lands was open.

“I hear something back in the tunnels!
 
But nothing can be back there!
 
Roric came through there.
 
I don’t like Roric.
 
He brought a horse in here and took Karin away.”

She started to laugh, then realized tears were streaming down her face.
 
“It’s all right!” she called in a voice she was not able to make cheerful.
 
“It’s me, Karin!
 
And I have my little brother with me.”

The oak woods near Hadros’s castle appeared unchanged as Karin and Valmar emerged into the cool evening air.
 
The chaos of which the Wanderer had warned had not reached mortal lands—or not yet.
 
They would know that the dragon had destroyed the powers of voima if the sun did not rise again in the morning.

It was a shock to be back, without any period of transition, to a world so familiar, and here Valmar seemed even more fully grown and muscular.
 
Karin felt almost emotionless, as though this final shock, on top of all her recent experiences, had driven all feeling from her.

As they stumbled through the woods toward the castle she told Valmar about their long trip to reach him, about Hadros’s pursuit of them, and about King Eirik.
 
She told him of the dragon’s den and the cave of the Witch of the Western Cliffs behind it, of the Witch’s hope that the Wanderers and Hearthkeepers might somehow be reunited, and of their conversation with the Wanderer.
 
All she kept quiet was the price the Witch had extracted from Roric—and the fear that he was her brother.

Valmar grunted in response as though listening but asked her nothing.
 
Karin realized as she spoke that she was telling it as though it were a story, someone else’s story, and this time might somehow have a different ending.

She listened for any sign of the troll as they walked, not knowing how she would deal with meeting it at this point, unsure she would even bother to try escaping.
 
Valmar had very little to say about his time in the realms of voima, not even how he had become separated from the Wanderers and ended up with a Hearthkeeper.

She had wondered in a daze if she and Valmar, like Roric, had returned from immortal realms invisible, but nothing of the sort seemed to have happened.
 
Dag and Nole were stunned to find them hammering on the castle gates, unaccompanied, filthy, and unable to give any clear answers to their questions.
 
But the serving-maids recovered from their surprise enough to obey Karin’s orders, bringing them bread and ale and the last of the evening’s stew.

Firelight, ordinary, comforting, firelight, flickered through the hall.
 
It must be, Karin thought, because Roric had been with the third force rather than the true lords of voima that he had returned to mortal lands not fully himself.

The household assembled at the far end of the room to watch Karin and Valmar, the maids and the housecarls whispering together.
 
His younger brothers tried to stay quiet and let them eat, but they could not keep themselves from asking questions.
 
Karin told them sharply that they would hear the full story the next day, and Valmar said nothing at all, but that did not keep one or the other from suddenly bursting out with a new question.

“Where have you been all this time?”
 
“Did you see Father?”
 
“Where is your ship?
 
Or your horses?”
 
“Have you had adventures?
 
Did you get into any fights?”
 
“Where is Roric?”

Karin, almost too tired to eat, leaned against Valmar’s shoulder.
 
It was strong and solid, reassuring.
 
She wanted to comfort him and protect him, but it came to her as she closed her eyes sleepily that he might also be able to comfort
her.

Dag dared another question.
 
“Are you two married now?”

Both Karin and Valmar jerked up at that.
 
“No,” she said shortly, awake again.
 
What had Hadros told his sons?

Delighted to have at least one answer, Dag tried again.
 
“You left with Roric.
 
Where is he now?
 
Is he still alive?
 
Did Father catch him?”

Karin slumped again, her face against Valmar’s arm.
 
Emotion rushed back into her, replacing the numbness which she realized was all that had let her keep moving these last few hours.
 
“King Hadros captured Roric,” she said indistinctly, “but he escaped.
 
He escaped to rescue me.
 
And now,” she fought unsuccessfully against a sob that threatened to choke her as the full realization hit her of what the silence behind them must have meant, “he has given his life to save Valmar and me.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1

Valmar jumped up.
 
“Out!” he ordered.
 
“Everybody out!”

The serving-maids and housecarls took one look at his face, stern and suddenly very like his father’s, and made for the door.
 
Dag and Nole hesitated in surprise.
 
“You too,” Valmar snapped.
 
Nole began to ask something more, but Dag took him hastily by the arm and dragged him away.
 
Valmar bolted the hall door after them.

He turned back to Karin, who was weeping now in good earnest.
 
She had pushed away her half-finished plate and had her head on the trestle table, her face hidden by her russet hair.

“He’s dead, he’s dead!” she wailed as Valmar gathered her up in his arms.
 
“I escaped to the faeys and left him to die!”
 
She clung to him, sobbing, as he patted her back.

“Karin, dearest Karin,” he found himself murmuring.
 
“Please stop crying.
 
He would not want you to mourn.
 
He loved you.
 
We shall make a great story and a song about him tomorrow so that his name will always live.”

Crying harder than ever, she threw her arms tight around his neck.
 
Valmar held her close and kissed her damp forehead very gently, then when she did not pull away he worked his lips down to hers.

She still made no effort to resist, though she was now sobbing Roric’s name over and over between kisses.
 
Valmar crushed her to him.
 
Roric is dead, he thought, trying not to feel joyous.
 
My father wants Karin and me to marry.
 
He thinks we already spent one night together.
 
Why then not this one?

They were alone together with the door barred.
 
He rose, lifting her from the bench, and carried her to the cupboard bed where she had always slept.
 
He could feel all her muscles and all her womanly softness against him.

He laid her down and sat on the bed beside her, waiting for her tears to subside while his heart beat faster and faster.
 
He kicked off his boots and made a deliberate effort to keep the hand on her shoulder gentle.

“I’m sorry, Valmar,” she gasped, wiping futilely at her wet cheeks.
 
“But I can’t stop crying.
 
I’m so weary and so miserable!
 
I have tried to be strong for so long—
 
He embraced death at the end, and I know it was because of me.
 
And he died without my even saying I loved him!”

She buried her face in the pillow, shaking all over, and Valmar stretched out beside her so that their bodies were touching along their entire length.
 
How could he have ever been distracted by the woman in the realms of voima? he wondered.
 
She had never been a real woman, he told himself, only a boy’s fantasy come to life in a world very far from this, the castle he would one day inherit.
 
He had never even known her name.
 
He pulled Karin slowly closer.

If she realized that the arm around her shoulders was more than the arm of a comforting younger brother she still gave no sign.
 
Valmar started trying to loosen her clothing, although it was hard with her back turned toward him.
 
“Dearest Karin, my sweetest one,” he whispered, peeling off his own jacket, “my own dear love.”
 
She only sobbed in answer.

Abruptly Valmar pulled away and stood up.
 
He could not take her now, not here in the hall where she had long been mistress of Hadros’s household, ordering around the maids and housecarls, giving commands even to the warriors, and looking after the boys she thought of as her little brothers.
 
She had kissed him a moment ago, but she had really been kissing Roric.
 
He clenched and unclenched his fists, looking down at her.
 
He loved her so much that he could not do anything to hurt her.

Dag and Nole—and for that matter everyone else in the castle—doubtless had ideas of their own what he and Karin were doing alone here.
 
None of the men would understand why he did not take a woman when she lay before him on the bed, offering no objection, only tears that were not for him.

He shook his head, then bent to remove her shoes.
 
He was his own man and had to make his own decisions, not do what he thought others expected of him.
 
“Try to sleep, Karin,” he said gently, pulling the blanket over her.
 
“Tomorrow you and I can start on a song for Roric.”

Her sobs slowly weakened, and after half an hour he heard her breathing grow regular.
 
He sat glumly, not moving, staring into the fire while it burned down to coals.

It was after midnight and the hall was nearly pitch black when Valmar rose again to his feet.
 
He could not retreat back here to safety, where everyone was happy he was the royal heir and would be delighted, as delighted as at a great story of warriors of old, if he told them how many men he had killed.
 
And he could no longer seek solace in the love of women.

Karin slept on.
 
Hadros and his warriors had taken most of the extra weapons when they pursued Roric and Karin, but in the corner chest Valmar was able, after a little quiet rummaging, to find an old sword which he belted on.
 
Eirik had his singing sword, and he did not want to go to fight the outlaw king barehanded.

He felt his way to the door and unbarred it carefully, then stepped out into the courtyard.
 
The rest of the castle was silent.
 
It had been long since Hadros posted guards at night, and the small number of warriors he had left here would not have been enough for constant watches anyway.
 
Valmar crossed silently to the gates and worked the great bolts back.

He had saved Karin and brought her home, but he could not stay here with her as her brother.
 
Roric had traveled hundreds of miles to save him, and he could not now desert him if there was any chance his foster-brother was still alive.
 
The fight with the dragon must be over by now, but if the Wanderers still survived he was still pledged to serve them.

No comfortable inheritance for him of a kingdom he had not won himself, and also no adventure for its own sake, or only in thoughtless imitation of old tales.
 
All that was important was to follow the way of honor in his own heart, even if in the world’s eyes his honor was gone.

Now he hoped, hurrying through the dark woods, that he could return through the faeys’ burrows the way they had come.