Legend of the Mist (22 page)

The boy’s words were cut short when
, with an earth-shattering roar, Einarr grabbed him by the collar of his tunic and threw him backwards through the air. The axe was knocked from the boy’s hands as he landed, and before he could pick it up again, Einarr’s knee was jammed into his tender, young throat, and the blade of his sword pressed to the bone between the boy’s eyes.

“If death is what you want, then you shall have it,” Einarr
snarled.

“Einarr, for the love of
Thor, let him speak his message,” Torsten shouted.

“He has no message, you
heimskr
,” Einarr spat back. “Why would they leave one of their own to be slaughtered just to deliver a message?” His barrel chest heaved as he spoke, barely containing the rage which roiled within.

“I speak the truth,” the boy insisted defiantly. “I have proven myself a loyal servant to Olaf Gunnarsson and he is granting me a glorious death in return.”

Torsten shook his head. “You are a fool, boy. The beast has done nothing but left you for dead.”

The boy glared at Torsten from the corners of his eyes, being unable to
turn his head and look directly at him because of Einarr’s blade pressed between them. Doubt flickered across his brow as he considered Torsten’s claim. But as soon as it had come, it was gone.

“You are wrong,” he
sneered. Then shouting to all the men present he said, “You are all wrong, and your time has come. Harald Fairhair, king of all Norway, will rid himself of the plague which you bring upon his lands.
All
of you, the pirates that hide in the southern islands and attack his realm. He will tolerate your treason no longer.”

His message delivered and prepared for his death, the boy spat in Einarr’s face. Howling, Einarr lifted his sword, ready to drive it through the boy’s skull.

“Einarr, no,” Torsten cried.

Einarr paused, turned his head, and glared at his brother. The desire to kill raged in his eyes, the need to avenge his people overwhelming. Torsten pleaded silently with Einarr, begging him not to kill unnecessarily. They both knew this boy had not been the one to murder, he could barely hold an axe
, for pity’s sake.

Indecision warred within the fearsome Viking leader. His own men watched on, incredulous. Why did he not just kill the
wretch and be done with it? Einarr turned back to the boy, raised his sword higher, and ...

Nothing.

The men’s confusion turned to shock as their leader lowered his weapon, and instead of cleaving the boy’s skull in two, punched him instead. A mighty punch, to be sure, one that broke the boy’s nose and sent a spray of blood flying through the air. But the boy had been allowed to live.

Torsten offered a prayer of thanks to the gods
.

There
was no time to dwell on Einarr’s surprising turn of character. Leaving the Fara men to guard the lone messenger outside, the Norsemen, with Einarr leading the charge, streamed through the open gate into the quiet grounds beyond.

They
did not need to search long; the great hall contained all the evidence of Olaf Gunnarsson’s message that they needed. Bodies were strewn about, saturated in their own blood. Prominent citizens of Hvaleyrr, servants of the castle. Their rank made no difference now. They lay mingled together, an equality that only the likes of death could bring.

And among the dead were the remaining kin of the great Alfrad Greybeard. Ingrid lay on her back, her eyes open and staring. Her throat had been slit.

It had been a swift death at least.

A short distance away from her mother lay Siri. She had not been as lucky as Ingrid. She’d been beaten severely and stabbed many times. By the state of her hands—bloodied, scratched, the fingernails ripped to shreds—it was clear that she’d fought viciously to the last.

Of course she had, Torsten thought,
a suffocating pressure constricting his chest. She was protecting her son; she would fight to the death to protect her son.

Had
fought to the death.

It had been for naught in the end
. The boy lay entwined in his mother’s arms, as silent and still as she.

* * *

Einarr was not the same man after that. In a daze, he staggered away from the castle, his eyes staring at something invisible to the rest of the men. When Torsten went after him, Garrett stopped him.

“Leave him be,”
he said. “He’ll want to be alone.”

“Since when do you know my brother so well?” Torsten bit back.

Garrett shrugged. “In some things, I think he and I are more alike than I’d care to admit.”

Torsten glowered at him, chewing on whether or not to tell him to mind his own affair. In the end he said nothing. The man was right, after all. Something had broken in Einarr, and he needed time to put whatever it was back together.

It worried Torsten, though. Until now, Einarr had been impervious to breaking; his soul had been as cold and hard as the hilt of his sword. How long would it take for him to recover from this?

Conceding
, he instead busied the men with collecting the dead and building a funeral pyre as was their custom. Not one among them had escaped a loss of some kind. Some of them could not bear to part with their loved ones, and had to be reminded that they could not take their place among the gods if their bodies were not turned to ash and released to the sky.

It was nearing
sunset when the pyres were lit and the bodies burned. Still Einarr stayed away, even as Siri, Ingrid and Alfie were turned to ash. As the Vikings bid farewell to their dead, it was Garrett who sought their leader out.

He found him near the rear of the
castle just as the sun slipped below the horizon. A dusky hue had settled over the silent town, bathing the land in shadow. Einarr sat on the edge of a small vegetable garden, perched on a felled log that had been worn smooth from years of use as a seat. His head was bent, and his forearms rested upon his knees.

Garrett would not have thought it possible before now, but the man looked smaller. Diminished in his grief. He said nothing as he approached, just took a seat on the stump as far from Einarr as he could. Einarr was the first to speak.

“Well then,
sveinn
,” he said hoarsely, “you have your retribution. An eye for an eye, as they say.”

Garrett breathed deeply, surveying the
stalks and debris of the vegetables which had recently been harvested from the garden. All that wasted effort, all that wasted hope. Those vegetables would nourish no one now, would see no one through the coming winter.

“I dinna take pleasure in the deaths of innocents
, no matter who they are.”

“M
y mother never had much of ... of—what is it, beliefs? Thoughts?”

“Opinions?”

“Ja, she never had much of an
opinion
on this war one way or another. She never had much of an opinion on anything; in fact, she simply followed my father’s lead and supported my cause. But Siri, my sister, she never understood it. Oh, she understood that Harald Fairhair was taking land that did not belong to him, but she did not understand what I did to oppose him. I do not believe it was that she did not want to know. I think it just never occurred to her to wonder.

“She adored me, you know. Torsten too, of course, but then Torsten had nev
er been a part of the raiding. Not truly, not like me. Here I was bringing death and grief to innocent people, convincing myself that there were no innocents in this war ... and she continued to adore me through it all. Had she known, had she had some idea of what I was doing ... I do not think she would have respected me the way she did.”

Garrett made no comment
. He was not about to sympathize with the Viking who had murdered his clan, but nor did he have the energy to antagonize him any further. He was tired, had not the will to fight anymore.

Releasing a heavy sigh
, Einarr continued. “I did not think the war would touch them here. I don’t know why—I should have known. Even if I had not made myself notorious, Hvaleyrr was still a valuable port; twofold was it vulnerable. But I didn’t consider it. I suppose that I thought if my men and I were not here, Hvaleyrr would be left alone. My people would be safe.”

T
urning his head towards Garrett, he looked intently into his eyes. “I will not insult you by apologizing for killing your people. But ... but I know now what it is to feel that kind of loss. It is painful.”

Garrett nodded, digested his words before speaking.
“And I willna insult ye by pretending that I can forgive ye.”

“I would think less of you if you did
.”

They both lapsed into silence
. After a time, Garrett stood. Surprising himself and Einarr, he clapped a hand on his shoulder. It was not a gesture of sympathy, nor forgiveness, nor understanding. But it
was
a gesture, perhaps an acknowledgement of their shared sadness. Of being united in that at least.

Then he left the Viking
to his grief.

Eighteen

Only the Gallach men returned to Fara, the Norse choosing instead to remain on Rysa Beag to settle the handful of surviving kin they’d brought with them, and to grieve their loss as a people.

No one asked about the voyage; the faces of the returning islanders told the tale well enough. Like their warriors, the clansmen and women could not find satisfaction in the vindication of their loved ones.

Not even Cinead took pleasure in the slaughter of Hvaleyrr. When the party of voyagers returned, he slipped silently away to be by himself. Norah considered following him, but decided against it. The cliff which overlooked the harbour was where Cinead felt his father’s presence the strongest. He would find the comfort he needed there.

The evening saw a quiet meal in the hall. The raucous sound of Norse banter
and jovial, booming laughter was notably absent. It was without their Norse allies that the islanders realized they’d grown accustomed to their guests, that the uneasy truce which had existed between them had somehow become ... less uneasy.

How could that be when they’d caused such devastation and sorrow?
Only a handful of years ago they’d murdered and pillaged all that the clan had been, and all that the clan had possessed. The people of Fara should be glad to be rid of them, even if it were only for a short while.

Why, then, were the Vikings missed? Why did the hall feel empty without them?

Even Norah missed them to a degree. Freyr, she’d come to discover, could be rather delightful in a rough sort of way. She had not realized until now that she enjoyed watching him ruffle Einarr’s feathers, that the captain and his leader shared a unique friendship which vexed them both, but made everyone else around them smile.

It was Torsten, though, who occupied her thoughts the most. She ached for word of him, to hear that he had come back to her. It was silly, really. She knew he would; her clansmen reported that there had been no
fighting in Norway, and she did not at all believe he would abandon her. Still, she was desperate to hear his name, to see his face.

When the weak light of an overcast day faded to night, Norah fell into dreams haunted by a young woman and her small son, both with clear, blu
e eyes and pale hair, whom she had never met.

Whom she would never meet.

Her dreams were short-lived. In the thick of night she awoke, feeling in both mind and body as though she’d slept for ages. Her eyes scanned the room; objects stood out in crisp relief as though they were bathed not in darkness but in morning light. A thick, milky fog had settled in the room. It shimmered around her, teasing her with a translucent vision of the broch within its folds.

The broch
was calling her; she must go to the broch.

The
vapour was thinner outside, at ground level. It was as if the mist had risen with conscious intent, spilling into her room and confronting her there as a means of communicating the broch’s summons. A sentient entity.

She knew better than to dismiss the notion.
As she walked through it now, the mist followed her. An excited child urging her onward.

Through the silvery blackness of the night Norah detected a flickering orange light
as she approached the broch. It oscillated against the inner wall, and the rich, unfamiliar scent of wood smoke wafted through the air. She breathed deeply, enchanted by its heady flavour. She had never smelled the like before; turf was all she’d ever known.

She paused at the entrance where the wall had
caved and crumbled. Across the space, where the ancient hearth was once again alight with flame, Torsten sat on the ground. He was hunched over, his knees drawn and his forearms resting atop them.

H
e looked devastated.

“I knew you would come,” he said without turning,
recognizing instinctively that she was there though her footsteps had been silent. “I wondered at first if I should fetch you from your bed, but decided not to. I knew you would be called, that this place would find a way to tell you I was here, waiting for you. Is it not strange that I believe in such magic so faithfully?”

Was it not strange that, not so long ago, she had mistaken the magic for madness?

“Wood?” she inquired.

“Ja,” Torsten answered,
his chin bobbing a slow, deliberate nod.

Making her way with cautious steps through the segmented inner area,
Norah sank beside him on the dirt floor as he reached to the small pile of wooden items on his other side. His hand grasped the leg of an unpainted, carved horse and he tossed the item onto the flames.

“From where?”

“I made these for my sister, Siri, and her son. I never met him; I left Hvaleyrr before he was born and had not returned in all that time.”

“What are they?” she prompted when he lapsed into silence.

Torsten breathed deeply, lost in the lapping flames. “A small chair; a few toys ... I cannot bear to look at them now. It gives me too much
bol
.”

“What is
bol
?”

“Grief. Sorrow. I find your words do not describe well enough my pain. My words,
bol
,
harmr
, they are more—” he paused, identifying the correct word, “
expressive
to me.”

Norah’s
heart ached as another finely crafted item was consigned to the flames. A pity to destroy such careful craftsmanship. But she understood well Torsten’s need to be rid of it. She herself could not look at empty homes or familiar items without remembering the men of her clan with which she associated them. Killed. Gone from their lives like smoke and ash rising into the air.

When the last of his hopes had been burned he glanced at Norah, his blue eyes boring into hers with an intensity that rivalled the heat of the
fire. “I cannot go back,” he breathed.

Confused, she furrowed her brow.
“Ye canna go back to Hvaleyrr? Because of ... of what happened there, there are too many painful memories for ye?”

“No,” Torsten shook his head
, agitated. “I cannot go back. There was a time when I did not know you, when I did not know of this place. When that was so, I travelled afar, to distant lands without so much as a second thought. But now, knowing what I know, knowing you ... what I mean is that I cannot go back to who I was before you.”

Her throat tightened as she looked at him. He was so insistent, and so lost at the same time. She opened her mouth to speak, but Torsten spoke first.

“That is why you cannot marry Einarr. You must marry me. He is my brother, and I am sorry to betray him, but I cannot allow it to happen. You must leave with me. You must be
my
wife. It can be no other way.”

Torsten’s
wife
. A deceptively simple idea; Norah wanted to believe in it. But the word sounded wrong. Wife. As much as she wanted it to be their destiny, something inside her told her that it wouldn’t.

Beyond the
walls of the broch the sea, which had been oddly silent since Torsten arrived on Fara, released a ghostly laugh that echoed in her ears, reminding her that her fate was still waiting for her.

No, she
would not be Torsten’s wife. She could not leave Fara, for the water that surrounded the island would be her end. Her knowledge of that fact had not changed. Destiny would intervene to stop her marriage to Einarr, but not by offering a marriage to Torsten instead.

Yet she could not bear to tell him so, his face was so hopeful. It was a hope she could not find it within herself to crush, so soon after the deaths of his mother, his sister and nephew. And countless more friends.

“I do want to be yer wife,” she said, but could say no more than that. As she feared, Torsten was overjoyed with what he thought was her acceptance. Expelling his relief in something between a laugh and a sigh, he pressed his mouth to hers.

Sadness caused tears to rise behind her closed lids. Though Torsten understood the connection between them, understood the bond that transce
nded time, he did not know, as she knew, their legacy.

Their story had already been written, and only she knew its ending. She wanted to cry for his naivety
, but his lips moving over hers numbed her mind and overwhelmed her senses.

She could not tell him, for she wanted him to believe in a happier ending for them both. And at this
moment, with her heart tripping from the nearness of him, she wanted to believe it, too.

What good would it do to destroy his illusions? What harm could it do if she allowed herself to be lost in them
as well?

Moving closer, she slid her hands beneath the hem of his wool tunic, her fingertips grazing the flesh beneath.

Let it be so, then. Let her forget what awaited them. Let her give herself to Torsten. Forget Einarr, forget the needs of her people. There was only Torsten.

That night
when the Norsemen had slept in her father’s keep, when she’d awoken with a hunger for him so strong she could not stop herself from climbing out of her own bed and into his arms—it had not been meant to happen. It had not been right, there, in a place that was not a part of their past.

It was here, in the broch, where they were meant to be together.

Torsten, too, sensed the rightness of what they would share in this place. Before, when he’d awoken to find Norah crouched beside him, desiring him, he had been a fool. He’d been too eager, too desperate. Unable to control himself.

It was not so now. This time he savoured her at his leisure, a lover already intimately acquainted with his woman. That’s what he was,
after all, for their love spanned ages.

Breaking from her lips, he pulled his tunic over his head and lay it on the ground behind her that her hair would not touch the dirt.

“I wish I had a cloak,” he whispered.

“It doesna matter,” she returned.

Threading her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck she guided him to lay down with her. Hovering over her, Torsten’s hands caressed her shape, reacquainting themselves with every curve of her body. He stroked her long, crimson locks, brushed the back of his knuckles over her cheekbones, along her jaw, and down the slope of her neck to her collarbone. Her skin was so soft, so smooth, that he longed to taste her. Leaning close, he repeated with his lips the path his fingers had taken.

The flames of the fire danced on, casting quivering shadows through the fine, white powder of mist onto the stone walls of the broch. No shifting shapes presented themselves this night, no laughing voices or spirited music. They were alone.

Yearning to feel him against her, Norah slid the wide, loose collar of her shift over her shoulders, baring her breasts. She arched her back when Torsten slid the shift further, exposing the taper of her ribs to her waist, the satin skin of her belly, the swell of her hip. His abdomen pressed to hers, a delicious blend of night-cooled and fire-warmed flesh.

Moaning, Torsten crushed his lips to hers again, allowing the palm of his hand to cup her breast. His fingers slid over her pert nipple, and he bent his head to her, tracing his tongue over the delicate peak. She held his head to her, shivering
when his warm, moist breath spread over her bare skin.

Her shiver inflamed Torsten’s desire. Her rapid
heartbeat challenged his own. His ache for her was so great it was nearly painful in the most pleasurable of ways. His breathing grew ragged, his hands restless. His torrid erection strained against his braies, demanding satisfaction. Hastily he removed the woollen garment, struggling out of it while still holding his lips to hers.

Despite the more primal urges which were raging between his thighs at the moment, Torsten did not enter her. He was not finished admiring the sheer perfection of her. He had been denied his love for so long, he was not about to rush their reunion.

A reunion it truly was. There was no awkward manoeuvring, no adjustments as they acquainted themselves with one another.

There was no anxiety on Norah’s part, no fear of what was, in this life, an unknown experience for her. She knew Torsten in this way; she welcomed his touch.
Everything about him thrilled her: the muscular thighs which twined with hers, the narrow hips and the broad shoulders. He was every bit the powerful warrior he was known to be, but there was an element of softness in him, too, that only she knew. Like silk over granite, strength and beauty in one.

When finally he was ready
for her, she welcomed him, moving beneath his body in encouragement. He trembled as he held himself above her, keeping his weight on his forearms to support himself. Moving slowly, mindful that her body was still that of a maid, he penetrated her. Shallow, at first, allowing her time to adjust. When she was comfortable with the size of him, he slid himself fully home, a low groan escaping his throat.

Just before he moved again, before he lost himself to his need for her, he looked into her eyes, memorizing their depths. The green of her irises flared, lightening
and then darkening again.