Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) (20 page)

Arianna.
He closed his eyes, imagining her heat. The warmth of her body in the curl of his and the softness of her skin under his fingertips. He could feel her now, her nearness. It would be no trouble to track her once he found his way inside the mountain. The rosewater of her hair, the sound of her heartbeat, unmistakable to his ears.

If she would only come to him.

Arianna, please…

The shuddering eased, the cold draining from his limbs now that the wind no longer reached him. And more. The echo of her heartbeat sped his own, strength pouring through him where there had been only ice and thickness. The heat of a fire on his skin made him sigh. Some trick of the sunlight, weak though it was. He basked in the feeling, letting the coat of rime melt and crack away from his skin. Warmth at last, even if it only lasted a moment. He had been so cold, rime-addled as his brother had feared, for now that the frost faded, he stared blinking at the sun.

How they would escape, he did not know, only that he must find a way. Through the rock, for the sake of her life and health, but he was no Vala to know the way of it. Even if it were only Elvish Persuasion, he had already proved what little skill he had with the blackrock, and Arianna had been convinced it was her hair that lit it, more than his poor magic. He wasn’t sure he disagreed, and even if he had, encouraging blackrock to burn was a child’s game. Persuading a mountain to pass them through its heart was another matter, one that required much more power than he had ever possessed.

Perhaps he should have brought Bolvarr with him after all, but his brother would not have survived this climb. The cold alone would have swallowed him if he had not slipped from the rock and fallen first. It was only Arianna’s strength that had kept Bolthorn warm enough to go on. To reach for her. He had promised her freedom, and all he had done was steal her strength and drain her dry.

He had promised her so much more than just freedom, too. And what could he give her now? If his brother was right, he had lost his standing. If he was not Gothi, what purpose did he serve? He had nothing left but his love, and that was not enough to fulfill the promises he had made her. Perhaps she would be better off with the Vala.

His stomach twisted suddenly, a trickle of fear replacing the ice in his blood. Had she chosen to stay with them? The thought had never occurred to him before, blinded by his own need. She could have begged Vanadis to keep her in the mountain, that she need never suffer the cold again, never suffer him again. Perhaps the Vala had made promises of their own.

Please, live. You must live.

The words, so softly whispered, burned through his mind to his blood. Arianna.
Arianna!
He felt the tug of the thread between their hearts, the agony along its length. He followed it, his hand pressed against the stone, where they hid her somewhere inside. A roughness scraped against his skin, and he breathed recognition. Quartz peppered the rock beneath his hand like stars in the sky, but for one small gap, where the crystal had broken and the stone dipped, an empty cup.

He found the piece of quartz he had prized from the mouth of the mountain pass in the pouch on his belt, and it warmed at once in his hand, throwing rainbows into the shadow.

Together
, he called to her, letting the sharp planes of the crystal cut into his palm. It hummed, burning hot with his blood, and a fierce joy flamed brightly in his heart.
Or not at all.

But it would take more strength than he had, alone.

“This illness is not yours,” Vana said, spooning broth into her mouth. Arianna was too weak to feed herself. Even to sit up to eat. “It is Bolthorn’s suffering you feel.”

The words were snakes in her stomach, and a pulse of pain and fear spread through her, spider-webbing farther from her heart with each beat. To think it herself had been one thing, but to hear it from the Vala’s lips—she did not have the strength to hide her tears. “You could save him. As you did me.”

Vana watched her, sidelong. “If you are this ill at such a distance from his pain, it is unlikely even the power of the Vala can help him. If the mountain let us pass at all, he would be dead before we found him.”

Dead, Bolthorn dead and still. She couldn’t breathe, or even swallow. The cold stole over her, turning her limbs to stone.

“I am so sorry, Princess, to give you such news.” She sighed, her gaze filled with pity. “You gave up so much for him, and to know it accomplished so little…”

Men fighting orcs, enslaving them. That was what Bolthorn had feared for his people. If she had only let him go alone, slipping away through the night, perhaps he would have reached his people in time. She could have confused his trail. Learned which of the king’s spies knew of her mother, knew of Bolthorn, and silenced them, somehow. Unless it had been Ragnar. She did not see how she could have stopped Ragnar. Likely, Ragnar would have stopped her long before she had learned what she needed to know to make any kind of difference to Bolthorn’s escape.

“There might yet be a way—” Vana stopped herself. “No, it is too soon for me to even think it. You will need time, and you have already sacrificed so much, it is cruel to ask anything more.”

More? If Bolthorn died, she had nothing left. She could not return to her family with the king’s blood on her hands, his curse upon her head. Could not return to her family with Bolthorn’s blood on their hands. Would not go back to be married off to some fool noble, to become nothing more than a tool, again. She had escaped her father’s noose, and she had no intention of being choked by her brother’s rope instead, or Ragnar’s, or anyone’s. If she was to hang, it would be by her own doing, her own choice. And she had chosen Bolthorn. She had chosen to share in his fate.

“Let me go to him,” she begged. “Let me see his body. That is all that I ask.”

“My dear, the dead cannot travel through the living rock. There is no way to bring him here, and weak as you are, you could not survive the journey.”

Dead, her soul would be with Bolthorn. It was worth the risk. Worth any risk, to fly from this world with him. “Please, my lady.”

“After all he has done to protect you, to keep you safe, you would throw your life away so easily?”

She said nothing, meeting Vana’s eyes. The room blurred with the moisture standing in her own, but she did not care. What difference did it make if she was weak now, when her strength could not save Bolthorn? She had been a fool to think she had ever been strong enough to stop what was coming.

Forgive me, Mother. I had not meant to fail you.

The Vala leaned closer, her voice pitched low. “There is a better way, Arianna. Give meaning to his death, to his sacrifice and your own. You are of the proper blood, if you returned with the right magic, you could persuade them, raise an army and take the throne. You could rule and save us, save them, too, from what might come if this continues. The dragons will not stand to be hunted again. There will be death, so much death, if they realize men have come so far.”

Vana stroked her hair, her face, her own expression laced with fear, badly hidden. “When it comes, it will be a shock. You will feel your heart seize with his, but it will pass. You will go on, unbound, free to live, to find a new love. I should not have spoken of the rest.”

The rest.

The rest became nightmares while she slept. Dragons swooping low over the villages, flame roaring from their jaws, and the people, her people, screaming in agony and terror, fleeing for their lives. A mountain of charred corpses, ashes climbing into the sky, orc mixed with human mixed with elf.

And then she woke, her chest cramping so hard her lungs burned to breathe. She could not cry, or scream, or move, only lie there, still as the dead. Still as Bolthorn, who had just shed his last breath.

She tumbled into blackness at last, and there was nothing else. Nothing left.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The fever lingered still the next day, though she could not bring herself to open her eyes. Bolthorn, gone. She held tight to the aches of her body, to the chill in her blood, courting it, begging it to burn her to a husk. It did not matter now, if she lived. She had failed her mother, failed Bolthorn and his people. She could serve no one, and Bolthorn was gone. Never to hold her again, never to love her, never to hear his voice rumbling, or his low laugh.

She did not open her eyes, but she still wept.

“You felt him go.” It was not truly a question, and the Vala’s cool hands touched her face. “It does not have to be for nothing, Princess. We can give you peace, a purpose to your days. He brought you to us for a reason, and you might still claim it for your own, live on knowing you accepted his last gift.”

She rolled away from Vana’s touch, pulling the bearskin over her head to muffle her voice as well. Everything hurt, every brush against her skin too heavy, too much. This was Bolthorn’s last gift, this fever, and she could only pray it would drag her back to him in death, as she had been bound to his life.

“He wanted you to live,” Vana said. “And more than only you. There is the child to consider, now.”

Arianna froze, not daring even to draw breath. Her hand crept to her stomach. Too soon. Too soon to know, to even think—and they had only shared each other for one night.

“You think we would not know the moment his seed began to grow in your womb? The Vala nurture all life, tend it more carefully than a shepherd does his flock, than a farmer watches his field. We know it even at its first spark.”

A baby. Bolthorn’s baby. His blood, his body, the result of his love. And it had been love, that night, and the morning after. Husband or not, it had been love.

“Bolthorn’s last gift, Princess. If you will let it grow. But you are not made for this cold. If you stay, there is a risk to both of you. In Tiveden, you could be safe, warm. The elves would care for you as their own, at my word. And they can teach you everything you must know to save your people as you have tried so hard to save ours. You could grant Bolthorn’s child a kingdom as a tooth gift and secure our peace, the peace he wanted. That was why he crossed through the mountain, you know. Bolthorn only ever dreamed of peace, of a day when his people need not stand watch. Would you see it made true?”

The words flowed over her like so much water, gentle and soft, washing away the grime of so much despair. If the king had been right, it was not so different from what the queen had wanted. And perhaps her mother’s family would help her, if she promised to keep their secret.

“You need not decide now,” Vana said, her hand resting briefly upon her shoulder beneath the fur. “Rest, recover. Think upon what I have said. Think upon Tiveden.”

With a whisper of robes, Arianna lay alone.

And yet…

Not.

Inside the mountain, there was warmth at last. Warmth and power so thick, breathing burned. The walls of the cavern glittered with quartz the way an orc’s skin shattered in sunlight with rime. It was a dream of beauty and light, dancing with images beyond ken.

In the reflections of quartz, Arianna’s hand fluttered, her fingers grazing the flesh of her belly with tenderness. She pressed her mouth into a grim line, then lifted her gaze to the black-haired woman who sat beside her. Her lips shaped a word, clear and careful in her hollow face.

Tiveden.

To the elves.

The mountain sent them first to the largest village of the Vidthursar, where the Vala left her warm by the fire with the Gothi’s wife and disappeared almost at once to speak with the council of elders. Arianna wrapped herself in the bearskin, but the winter winds were not so fierce here, broken as they were by the pine trees, and there was not yet snow on the ground, only frost. The Gothi’s hut was wood and earth, with furs and hides hung like tapestries against any chance of draft and beside the fire, Arianna felt no chill at all.

The Gothi’s wife smiled, her skin pale blue instead of green, and offered her a thick, hot stew to eat. Her tattoos were umber-colored instead of black, high on the left side of her face, and trailed from her brow to her temple with the patterning of branches before disappearing into blue-black hair.

Arianna trained her gaze on the fire, telling herself not to stare. But this was only the second orc she had seen, and the Gothi’s wife was not at all what she had expected, small and almost delicately boned compared to Bolthorn.

Her heart twisted at even the thought of his name and she closed her eyes. She would never see Bolthorn again.

“My lady, you must be tired after your journey. It is a long way to come, even traveling through the mountain instead of over it.” Her voice was light, easy as a songbird’s, and her eyes were green like Vana’s, rather than Bolthorn’s yellow-amber. She moved like an elf, too, nothing wasted, and everything a dance. Were it not for her tattoos and the bruised color of her skin, Arianna might have believed her to be human, at first glance.

“How far from the Hrimthursar?” she asked.

Vana had told her little about the forest orcs, sister clan to Bolthorn’s own. It seemed the orcs who could not stand the winters on the mountain had migrated down the slopes over time, gathering together in villages, and because there was little contact in the winter months, it had made more sense for them to rule themselves. Now they were known for their forests, just as the Hrimthursar had taken their name from the frost. Elvish words, both and there had been something else about Elvish bloodlines, but Arianna had not given it much attention. What difference did it make if she would never know them?

“At least four days, but we do not travel so high up the mountain in winter. No Vidthursar dares the climb, and even the Hrimthursar wait for the sun.”

The sun had set for the winter before they had left the hidden caves of the Vala, but Vana had promised her sun in Tiveden. She yearned for it already. “I thought all orcs climbed before they walked.”

“The Vidthursar prefer to climb trees over rock and ice, my lady. But we are as skilled in our own ways as the Hrimthursar are in theirs.”

Another orc swept back the heavy hides over the doorframe, his skin glistening with the barest touch of rime. He was tall and lean, his orcish features as smoothed as the Gothi’s wife, and when he entered, he did not seem to see Arianna at all.

“Forgive me, Vid-Gythja. But I had heard—”

“Peace, Bolvarr. The Vala sits in council, but she will not leave without collecting her companion.” The Gothi’s wife nodded toward her and the orc, Bolvarr, turned.

Vid-Gythja, he’d called her. Is that what she would have been called, if Bolthorn had lived? He’d said as much, she thought, but it seemed so long ago now. He’d said he would make her his Gythja, to lead at his side. But now Bolvarr had seen her, and she realized with a lurch he had Bolthorn’s yellow eyes, and the same grey-green skin.

One step toward her, then another, halting. His hand opened, palm up, in a gesture Bolthorn had used so often, offering, waiting, wanting. His tattoos were patterned similarly on the right side of his face, arching in sharp black peaks over his eyebrow from the bridge of his nose to his temple and curling across his cheekbone. But he was so spare, compared to Bolthorn. Like a panther, rather than a bear. So why was it, when he looked at her that way, she felt her soul shatter with agony for what she missed. Bolthorn.
Bolthorn, why did you not live?

Bolvarr fell to his knees, and even in his distress the movement held a certain grace she would never share.

“Magkona.” He gathered her hands in his cool grasp, pressing them to his lips. “Wife of my brother. I never thought to meet you here. Tell me your bond still beats strong, that there is some hope my brother lives!”

Her fingers tightened around his, the desperation of his words lodging in her heart like shards of ice. “Bolthorn was your brother?”

“Ahh.” He rocked back on his heels, his face paling to an ashen grey. “He—was.”

“The Hrim-Gothi is lost?” The Vid-Gythja asked, the song stripped from her voice. Her gaze fell sharply on Arianna, studying her with new interest. She could see the question written in her eyes.
Wife?

The Gythja had never seen a human woman until today, though it seemed the news of Bolthorn’s journey had traveled far, if not the war it had brought. None of the Vidthursar had ever met a human in living memory, from what Vana had told her, for they stayed in their forests while the Hrimthursar guarded the passes.

“But surely the Vala would save Bolthorn, above all?”

Arianna shook her head, closing her eyes against their pain. Her own was too near to suffer it. “The mountain would not let them pass.”

“His last words to me were of your honor, sister.” Bolthorn’s brother squeezed her hands. “He would not have believed his life spent poorly, as long as he won your freedom in its loss.”

Her throat was too thick to answer, nor could she bring herself to meet his gaze. Bolthorn’s gaze, though it would never hold his warmth.

“If in any small way I might serve you, you have only to ask and I will come. Promise me you will.”

“You owe me nothing, Bolvarr. With your brother’s death, I have already taken too much.”

“Vanadis does not often leave the mountain,” the Vid-Gythja murmured, “but for the Hrim-Gothi, the honor is due.”

“As honor is due to this woman,” Bolvarr said. “For without her, Bolthorn could not have returned. She risked her life to help him.”

“It was my father who held him. My father who scarred his skin and poisoned his body. Had it not been for the burden of my help, Bolthorn would have reached you sooner, and perhaps he would even live now.”

“In misery, sister, for having left you behind.” Bolvarr smiled sadly, and unlike Bolthorn, there was no sign of his tusks. Bolvarr would have reminded her more of Vana than Bolthorn, were it not for his eyes, his tattoos, and the shade of his skin. His beauty did not blind, but the Elvish grace showed in his face. “And we in misery with him.”

“He should never have known me at all.”

Bolvarr’s forehead creased even as his eyebrows rose. “Surely my brother explained to you—there was no other way, once the Ancestors willed it so. The laughter of your thoughts would have drawn him as surely as a moth to flame.”

The Gythja gasped. “His thoughts laughed with hers?”

“He is dead.” She pulled her hands from Bolvarr’s, turning her face away. “It does not matter now.”

“But you are neither elf, nor orc!”

“I said the same, Gythja, but Bolthorn was certain of their bond.”

Arianna pressed her lips together. But this was Bolthorn’s brother, and if there was anyone she might trust among these people—Bolthorn’s people—surely it was his family. “Perhaps I am more human than anything, but my mother was something more, if the king was to be believed.”

Bolvarr’s hands tightened around hers. “I fear I do not understand, sister. You cannot claim to be part orc?”

She shook her head. “My mother’s family claims descent from the elves. From a half-blood, left behind after the mountains rose. I have no reason to disbelieve it.”