Fire and Lies (11 page)

“Aaric vowed to serve me and my father ages before we came to Alfheim, as did Daggon and all others below his station.”

“So you’ve said,” Rune said.

Kallan turned her back, taking a step from Rune as she rubbed her forehead.

“Why can’t you believe what is so plain?” he asked.

“Why are you insisting Aaric—or any Dokkalfar, for that matter—is a threat?” she asked, turning about on her heel. “Why do you insist it was a Dokkalfr that intercepted those messages? Why not a Ljosalfr?”

“Because Borg agreed to free me if…”

Too late, Rune pursed his lips and wished back the words as the blood drained from Kallan’s face. Her mouth fell open, too stunned to speak.

“You hadn’t answered my summons,” Rune explained, but Kallan’s head was reeling. “You retaliated offensively, costing us lives. And answers you wouldn’t supply eluded me.”

“Agreed?” Kallan repeated, hearing nothing else as the tension in the room suffocated her.

“Get out,” she said.

“Borg is why I can’t take you back to Lorlenalin,” Rune said.

“Get out!” Kallan screamed.

Visible hurt washed over Rune. He stiffly nodded and, with forced effort, his legs obeyed. Without a word, he left Kallan’s bower, closing the door behind him.

R
une threw back his head, gulping down a fresh mouthful of mead. He stared into the fire until the light burned his eyes. Swallowing another mouthful, Rune ignored the boom of his chamber door as Joren slammed it into the wall, followed closely by Geirolf and Bergen.

“Rune! You’re back!” Joren said, still wearing a layer of dust from the road over his riding armor.

“What is this Shadow Bergen talks about?” Geirolf roared behind Joren.

“And do we have news!” Joren said, speaking as he crossed the room.

“The Seidkona has possessed you with some sort of craft?” Geirolf said.

“Borg was here a week ago yesterday,” Joren continued. “He checks in once every fortnight.”

“What has she done to you?” the old man rambled, paying no mind to Bergen who sauntered along behind Joren, gently stuffing dry leaf into his pipe.

“Lorlenalin has proclaimed Kallan dead,” Joren said. “The search parties have been pulled back and they are holding you personally responsible for her death!”

Rune stared blankly into the fire, uninterested with the update and Geirolf’s inquiry.

“But get this,” Joren continued before Geirolf could interrupt again. “The order enraged those loyal to the queen and the Queen’s Captain and the old Seidkona have deserted!”

“He says you absorbed her Seidr?” Geirolf squawked.

“Don’t you see?” Joren said. “Borg says they are coming here!”

Rune took a swig while he cocked his head up at an awkward angle, studying Joren’s and Geirolf’s faces with indifference.

“Oh,” Geirolf groaned.

Rune’s glazed stare drained Geirolf’s enthusiasm while Bergen made himself comfortable on his brother’s bed and lit his pipe.

“The girl,” Geirolf said. “Bergen said you liked her.”

“I don’t like her,” Rune slurred, studying the flames in front of him. “She’s a vixen. A Seidkona who casts spells to manipulate and fog the mind…taking a man’s hard-earned judgment and cool logic with it.” Rune raised the mead to his mouth. “She’s a witch,” he added and threw back his head for another swig of the brew.

Geirolf barked a laugh.

“Boy! All women do that!” Geirolf said, ignoring Bergen who lay with ankles crossed and arms tucked behind his head, staring at the ceiling over the bed while he smoked his pipe without a care in the world.

“Well, this one is particularly good at it,” Rune said and took another mouthful, holding the mead in his cheeks a while longer than necessary before swallowing. He released a gasp as the sweet drink pooled down his throat.

With a shake of his head, he looked back to Joren.

“When is Borg due back?” Rune asked.

“In one week,” Joren answered, bewildered with Rune’s lack of excitement.

“One week.” Rune mulled the time over, answering before he added another gulp, “I think I can hold out ‘til then.”

“Never mind that,” Geirolf said. “What has the Seidkona done to you?”

“The Seidkona has done nothing,” Rune muttered.

“Well, what is it?” Geirolf asked.

Rune thought hard back to Borg in Lorlenalin’s stables. How they knelt together over Kallan as she lay dying… How Borg had healed her, begging him to take her from Lorlenalin as if he feared for her life. How Borg clasped Rune’s wrist…and then a thing—like a wolf-bear—awakened, roaring and bringing to life an energy that had kept Rune restless ever since. One thing was certain, whatever it was, it had a fondness for Seidr. Especially Kallan’s.

“I don’t know,” Rune answered.

“Rune,” Joren said. “We finally have the leverage we need to demand the terms to end this. If we tell the Dokkalfar that we have Kallan alive and well, they’ll adhere to every demand we make! It’s over!”

“What’s over?” Geirolf asked as if suddenly hearing Joren.

“The war,” Joren repeated.

“Ya hear that, Rune?” Bergen called from the bed. “You can have her every damn night if you wish!”

“She told me to get out,” Rune mumbled.

Bergen sat up. “She did…” A grin interrupted his exclamation.

The berserker shoved himself off the bed and clomped his way into the fire’s light to better gaze upon Rune. After a moment, he threw back his head and belted a laugh that filled the room.

Rune tipped the bottle up and glowered at his brother over the mead.

“She did you well,” Bergen said between bouts of laughter, tears wetting his eyes.

“Oh, like you’ve never seen the end of her sword.” Rune nodded, indicating the deep scar that decorated his brother’s brow.

Bergen grinned.

“Well, the rate you’re going, she’ll never see yours,” Bergen retorted, nodding down to Rune’s waist.

“There are others, Rune,” Geirolf said, as Rune frowned at Bergen.

“Yeah,” Bergen agreed, snatching the mead from Rune. “Have one of those and be done with it.”

“I would…” Rune yanked the mead back from Bergen mid-gulp, pouring the sweet drink down the front of him. “But I can’t drink from any local wells without finding out you’ve bathed in it.”

“What of the wandering wench?” Joren piped in.

“The wandering what?” Bergen asked.

Rune stared darkly into the fire and raised his drink in salute. “The wandering wench.”

“What is the wandering wench?” Bergen asked, looking about from Joren to Geirolf for answers. “Has a new tavern opened up?”

“The wandering wench is a who, Bergen,” Geirolf said.

“He found some girl roaming around the woods the night before the Battle of Swann Dalr,” Joren said, perking Bergen’s interests.

“Wait, what girl?”

“One you hadn’t stoked yet,” Rune slurred, staring at the fire.

“We had to weasel it out of him,” Joren said, grinning. “But once he talked, he wouldn’t shut up.”

“So find her!” Bergen said.

“Feisty temperament,” Rune grumbled, dulled by the drink as the flames danced, “and striking blue eyes like the gems you brought back from the deserts.”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Joren said, grinning.

“She called me obtuse, cowardly, and spoiled.” Rune threw his head back with a swig from the flagon.

“Why haven’t I stoked her?” Bergen asked.

“The wandering wench, Bergen,” Rune said, “is Kallan.”

With widened eyes, Bergen dropped his smile, suddenly understanding Rune’s behavior.

“Oh, you’ve gotta stoke her,” Bergen said, restoring his grin.

“You’re not going to think clearly until you do,” Geirolf interjected his opinion on the matter at last.

Rune downed the last of the mead.

“Have her,” Geirolf said. “Get your yearnings out of the way so we can send her back to Lorlenalin with our terms answered.”

“I don’t…” Rune dropped the empty bottle to his lap. “I don’t want her!”

“So,” Bergen mused. “On a sporadic whim, you ran off to Midgard—”

“—climbed Jotunheim—” Geirolf added.

“—picked a fight with the Dvergar—” Bergen said, staring at the ceiling.

“—lured Tryggvason’s army to Alfheim—” Geirolf said.

“—and prolonged the ride home by bringing the largest pain in my ass with us…” Bergen finished with a smirk that made Rune itch to punch him. “Because…” Bergen’s voice trailed off as the men waited for the grandest helping of ox dung Rune could muster.

Instead, the fire crackled and filled the silence.

“Borg approached me in Lorlenalin,” Rune slurred, balancing the empty flagon on his knee.

The words struck the three men, commanding their attention as they waited with piqued interest.

“He came to me with a deal almost immediately after my capture.”

“What kind of deal?” Bergen asked.

“He promised my freedom if I would take Kallan with me…” Rune twisted his head up to Bergen. “And kill her.” Rune returned his gaze to the fire before continuing, “Imagine my surprise when I recognized the queen as the wandering wench.”

Joren said, “If Borg approached you, then surely Kallan wou—”

“Kallan assures me that she doesn’t know Borg,” Rune answered.

“He’s a mercenary,” Bergen announced, looking to each face and waiting for them to see the connection as clearly as he. “He’s from Holmgardr.”

Gierolf furrowed his brow. “You suspect someone hired Borg from the Khazar to get Kallan out of the way?”

Bergen smiled. “The Khazar were eliminated by the Gardariki a few years back, Geirolf,” he said kindly. “I doubt the Khazar were involved.”

Geirolf pushed out his old bottom lip.

“Hard to keep these things apart, what with men killing off every rising power from the Imperial Guard to the Praetorian Guard, Aurvandiljar, Black Guard, Varingjar Guard—”

“The Black Guard is the Varingjar Guard, Geirolf,” Bergen corrected.

“Exactly!” Geirolf said.

“The Kryvics, the Aurvandiljar, the Gardariki…” Bergen said. “Any one of these turn out some of the best mercenaries.”

“Borg wasn’t hired from an outside source,” Joren said.

All eyes turned to the scout.

“I’ve presented Borg with every proposal made by Rune.” Joren shook his head. “Borg insisted that Kallan wouldn’t have it. When I met him with the last proposal before the attack at Swann Dalr, Borg just kept saying that he had his orders. That Kallan refuses all negotiations as did her father before her.”

Bergen turned to Rune, who watched the fire, lost to his bottle.

“And now you’re saying Kallan doesn’t even know about Borg?” Bergen asked.

“I told her,” Rune nodded. “Kallan has deemed her people loyal, and Borg’s existence as questionable. Then she told me to get out.”

Rune threw back his head for another drink before remembering the bottle was empty.

“You’ll need proof even she can’t deny,” Geirolf said.

“She is determined to return to Lorlenalin and be gifted with her throne as if she never left,” Rune said.

He looked down at his hands and sunk deeper into his chair before pushing himself up to his feet.

“Her high marshal rules Lorlenalin, claiming her death,” Joren said as Rune sauntered to a flagon of ale beside an untouched platter of food. “If Kallan returns—”

“Borg will ensure she doesn’t,” Rune said, selecting himself the largest flagon of spirits.

“She’s been usurped, and doesn’t even know it,” Bergen said.

Rune gulped his drink down in a single mouthful.

“Yep,” he concurred and stared at the food, his thoughts marinated with mead as he pondered. After a moment, Rune crinkled his face at Joren.

“The captain and the Seidkona have deserted, you say?”

Joren nodded. “That was the report.”

“And they’re coming here,” Rune said.

“Borg said the captain is convinced you have her, and they are looking to take her back,” Joren said.

“Borg said,” Rune pondered, recalling the same man who placed this Shadow Beast inside of him.

Joren and Geirolf exchanged confused looks.

“Tell me, Joren,” Rune said. “Did Borg ever show any signs of being a Seidr User?”

Joren gave a half-startled, half-confused look then shook his head. “Borg has no such—”

Raising his hand, Rune awakened the sleeping Beast of Shadow. Like black Seidr, an umbra streaked from Rune’s palm. Rune turned his hand over, studying the Shadow and holiding the Beast at bay as if on a short leash.

“The Seidkona did nothing to me,” Rune said, pulling the Shadow back inside him. “It was Borg who did this to me.”

The fire crackled as the men all gazed at Rune, too stunned to speak.

“And you say he is not Seidr User?” Rune asked.

Joren slowly shook his head, still too shocked to answer.

“Well, I watched him heal Kallan in front of me as the life was leaving her. He then put this thing inside of me.” Rune snorted at his own words, trying desperately to see where it all fit. “An amazing feat for someone who isn’t a Seidr User,” he added.