Lord of the Runes (32 page)

 

T
he sound of steel on steel shattered the calm beauty of the early spring day.

Silvi Ivarsdottir paused, listening to the clash echoing through the trees and the mountains. She didn't need to reach out with her thoughts to know what was happening. The reason for the disruption was obvious. Her brother's weeklong wedding celebrations were still going on in the village, so beer and weapons were inevitable. Anticipated, in fact. It was what men did best.

The sound of combat didn't come from the village. She tilted her head, seeking the source of the disruption. Her breath stilled. They wouldn't dare. It came from the place where the gods walked, the sacred grove. No one brought weapons there, the same as in the great temples. It was sacrilege.

Her stomach twisting, she rushed toward the clearing. She didn't fear facing down warriors. Rather, they should fear
her
. After all, she'd had the gods on her side since birth. She would defend and honor them until she went to Freya's hall in the afterlife.

She burst into the clearing and skidded to a stop. Two men circled each other. They were bare to the waist. Their long, dark hair swirled around their broad shoulders as they came together in an explosion of steel and sparks. They were both massive, men in their prime, fighting with all the skill that made their people so feared throughout the world. They moved with the masculine grace inborn to all the finest warriors as they surged through the clearing like water rushing in a river.

Her cousin, Rorik, laughed aloud as he swung, his black hair sweeping over his shoulders and down his chest. White teeth flashing, he smashed his shield against his opponent's arm, trapping his blade. He thrust, but his blade met with air as the other man stepped to the side and brought his own shield up, deflecting the deadly edge.

He pressed Rorik back several steps with his wicked, fast sword strokes. His hair was so dark it almost looked black, except for the deep golden lights in it. Moving with the skill of a predator, he surged forward, taking his advantage.

Her heart stuttered.
Magnus
. As she watched them, her body heated, her thighs weakening. Maybe it was only because she had just run a fair distance. The sun glanced off his sculpted arms as he swung his sword in a deadly arc. It smashed into the other blade with an explosion of sparks. She held her breath. If she called out, it could distract them. An instant's hesitation might mean death to one of them. Her anger at the sacrilege was not worth the risk. She could do nothing but watch.

Rorik disengaged, then hit Magnus's sword with his own, nearly knocking it out of his hand. He shook his black hair from his face and laughed as he brought his sword around for another blow. Magnus hit the ground, rolled, and came to his knees. He swept his shield horizontally, aiming for Rorik's legs. Rorik leaped over it with a yell and before he landed, Magnus was on his feet. He struck Rorik with his shield and knocked him onto his back.

It wasn't over yet, though. Rorik threw his shield, edge first. Magnus spun out of the way, arching his back as it knifed past him. It gave Rorik time to leap up and charge him. He drove Magnus back until he could grab his own shield and reposition it on his left arm.

They circled each other, grinning. Their bodies glistened with sweat. Rorik's stomach was rippled and flat. Magnus's was the same, save for a wicked, jagged scar crossing his lower abdomen. Both were slim-hipped, broad-shouldered, tall and powerful. But it was Magnus she watched. Rorik laughed and danced as he fought. Magnus stood solid, every move weighted and purposeful. His cuts were clean, direct, with no wasted energy or movement. His strength radiated from him like a storm rolling over the mountains.

She'd seen him in a vision before he'd come with her brother, Eirik, to set her village free of the marauders who had held them captive all winter. She'd tended his wounds, and while his blood flowed onto the ground, he'd stared at her as one thunderstruck. He'd continued to watch her through the following days. Now Eirik was married to Magnus's sister, Asa, so Magnus was family of sorts. She'd have to see him many times in the future. At least, until she went to live at the great temple at Uppsala. Then she would see no one at all.

She shook herself out of her reverie. This was wrong, that they should bring weapons into a sacred place. They were still feinting, no doubt resting for a final onslaught.

“Rorik.” Her raised voice stopped him short and he jumped away from Magnus with a guilty wince. “How dare you fight in the grove, Rorik? Not even you could be that sacrilegious.”

Instead of answering her, her cousin clapped Magnus on the shoulder and said, low, “Run.
Now
.” He bounded into the shadow of the trees, leaving Magnus standing alone.

She started after him. “I heard that, Rorik. Get back here.”

Magnus lifted his sword in a question. “Rorik, what are you doing?” He turned toward Silvi as she bore down on him. “We were just training a bit, Silvi. How could we know this was your grove?”

“It's the gods' grove, not mine. Rorik knows. He's been here before.” She shot him a glare. “As for you . . . Don't you scent the breath of the gods here? Don't you feel their power in the very ground? Or has your dishonor chased them from here?”

“I scarcely think a little swordplay would frighten them from here. Perhaps they're away for the day, seeing to other matters.” He sheathed his sword.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from cursing. “How can you be so irreverent? The gods will surely smite you for such talk.”

He swallowed and looked away from her. “I've seen what comes of too much involvement with the gods. Even as Eirik stayed the winter with us in Thorsfjell, I saw how he was pulled between Odin and Thor, but he balanced them within him. I don't have that knowledge. I know only the steel of my blade and the silver of my coins.”

“Thor's Mountain. Even your home bears his name and yet, to you, it is just a name. The gods' power slides past you, never going more than skin deep. Instead of their voices, all you hear is the clink of coins.” Her heart sank. Just as he had watched her this past week, so she had been aware of him. And her dreams at night . . . But it could not be. She wasn't meant for the hearth, a husband and children. And even if she were to follow that path, this irreverent warrior was not for her. They walked in two different worlds.

Her soul twisting, she tried to rush past him, but he caught her by the arm. A spark shot between them and she gasped. His eyes widened and he let her go.

“No man may touch me,” she said. “I am meant for the gods. They saved me this past winter from the marauders.”

“Then they know I pose no such threat to you, Silvi. Just understand that while you dream, enemies could overrun you, as Hakon and his outlaws did last winter.”

“The runes will warn me.”

“As they did then?”

She firmed her resolve. “The runes showed my mother and me that we'd know great change and loss. It was our own shortcoming preventing us from understanding what the gods tried to tell us. If Hakon had not attacked, Eirik wouldn't have left in the winter to go to Rorik for help. He wouldn't have found your village and spent the cold months with you. He and Asa would not have met, and you'd not have been forewarned of Hakon's plans to attack you in revenge for having him declared an outcast. We could not have come together to defeat him. Now, our families are joined through Eirik and Asa's marriage. It all happened for a reason.”

“And yet, for all your efforts, the gods took your father, and so many of your warriors and people.”

“My father was dying of the wasting disease. He died in battle with a sword in his hand, as a warrior would want, instead of a shell of a man on his sickbed. In that, the gods blessed him. At the moment of our births, the Norns decree when we will each die. No one, not even the gods themselves, can stop that. It was their time. In all else, the gods will provide.”

“The gods favor the strong.” His voice was sharp, like the honed edge of his blade. “Don't forget, the blood of warriors guards you. Silver gives you the privilege of food in your belly and a warm house in which to dream your dreams. All the gods do is watch us from Asgard in the same way we watch ants scurrying on the ground.”

A shadow came over them as a cloud hid the sun. Were the gods displeased at his words? Silvi shook her head with a sigh at his blindness. If he did not recognize the gods, as he should, how could they bless him? How could they smile on him if he didn't look up to see them? He was lost, like a ship at sea without a sail, and he didn't even know it. She raised her hand toward his arm, then dropped it to her side without touching him. “There's an imbalance in you, Magnus. The answer is not one thing or the other, but a mix of our world and that of the gods.”

He gave her a gentle smile and looked into her eyes, something no man except her brother could do. “Then you should heed your own wisdom, Silvi. I know you want to go to Uppsala to become one of the priestesses there. Where's the balance in that? You shun the things of this world, seeking only the starlit realms. Your beauty will be wasted there among the men who dance like women. The strength I've seen in you these past days will thin into insipid chants and rituals.” He lifted his hand to her cheek, but didn't touch it. Yet she trembled as though he had. He stepped back and took a deep breath. “Perhaps you're right. I shouldn't be here. Not with the thoughts I have in my mind. Thor's bolt will find me if I remain here any longer.” He smiled again and inclined his head to her.

She watched him as he strode out of the grove toward the village. He was strong, beautiful, deep like the roots of his mountain. Crystals sparkled in his blue eyes and his hair was like the night caressing the slopes of his shoulders. The gods had been so pleased when they'd created him that they'd made another who looked like him—his twin brother, Leif. Leif was the breeze swirling up the sides of the mountains in the spring, light and free, to careen off the peaks and be gone, uncatchable.

Magnus bore the weight of that mountain. His people, his trading business, his world. Not hers. He deserved a woman who could be a true wife to him, seeing to his people while he was gone, ruling over the household, warming his bed and bearing him children.

Her body clenched. He was everything any woman could want in a husband. But she was not just any woman. She must keep remembering that.