“That isn’t a longship,” she observed. Even from a thousand meters high on the cliff face, she could see the obscured outlines of the boat approaching, the fires on its deck further illustrated the shape of the vessel, nothing she had seen before on this inlet.
Panic closed her throat, speeding her pulse in her ears until she could hardly hear Erik barking orders at her. She swallowed the lump in her throat, shoving down the chaos building in her chest and willing her heart to slow. “Erik, do you have your horn?”
“Skide!”He cursed as his hands ran over his tunic. “No, I must have left it in the hall with my blade.”
“Then you need to go, you need to get back to the village as quickly as possible,” she looked at him with wide eyes outlined with fear. “I’ll follow you, but I can’t keep up if you are to get to them in time. You must leave me behind.”
“Absolutely not,” he said, snatching her by the arm and pulling her back toward the unmarked path.
“You sentence my people to death, Erik! If that is the same enemy that struck down our fathers, then you leave all those below with no warning and no chance.” She yanked her arm free of his grip. He turned back to face her with a vicious scowl, the moonlight forming deep shadows around his eyes. “I know this path like I know the woods, I can navigate it with my eyes closed. Go, Erik, or there will be no hope for my clan!”
His breath heaved beneath his cloak as he glanced from her to the drop off, the decision tearing his soul between his head and his heart. In a voice that broke he said, “Please, be careful,elskan mín.”
My love.
A smile struggled on her lips, already numb from the frozen breeze and the fear of losing everything she had left, the little it was. But the words she wanted to say stuck to her lips, and she was unable to release them. He turned away, swallowed by the mist curling against the coast before she could return his affirmation.
Her last chance to tell him she would always be his slipped away like the fog on the breeze.
Music.
Songs of an ancient time spun like flakes of frost in the thin breeze, meeting the ship Vali led through the channel. Strapped to the mast, now closed to allow his magic to float them along, was the last survivor of the Ostman’s army. With the right kind of motivation, Vali was able to persuade his captive to show him exactly where the man they called Ledger once resided.
The spirits of Midgard whispered the name for a reason, and he had little doubt the heathen was hiding the artifact somewhere deep within this rut in the land. The closer the ship drew, the more the hunger inside him gnawed into a feral starvation. A lifetime of patience and hope crushing disappointments—it was all coming to an end.
“The ship cannot proceed any further. Shall I release the boats?” Seela appeared beside him. His commander walked with a grace that gave her the essence of a stream.
Vali leaned against the shroud attached to the pale wood of the quarter deck’s edging, eyes peering into the distance to assess the party they were about to crash. His lips tipped into a wry smile. “Always so quick to attack, Commander.”
“It always ends the same with these brutes. Might as well get right to the point and save time.” She sighed. Her breath was tired. Vali could tell by the way her shoulders fell slightly as she released her frustration. She had been at his side since the beginning, and the constant disappointment was wearing her thin.
“Not this time,” he spoke confidently. “This is it, Seela. I’ve seen this place in my dreams. The place between the stone curtains, parting to invite us inside the heart of the land. The magic in my marrow is reaching, and I feel the Tether calling back.” He adjusted the leather gloves shielding his fair skin from the freezing cold plaguing the north country. “But you may have the men in position for a show of force.”
“As you wish.” She slipped away and began clipping his demands.
He hadn’t bothered to shield his ship from sight—there was little point. He took down hundreds of the heathens within an hour. A small village would be no conflict, and as long as they did as he asked, there would be no reason for them to fear him. He would take what he came here for and leave.
The music broke into a hushed silence, the lights in the townhomes flickered out, shrouding Drakame in darkness. Vali made his way down to the main deck, his heart full of a hope that bordered on desperation. The ship slowed to a halt; the anchor dropped to settle them in place.
He leapt over the starboard, landing in a dingy that fell into the water in a swift dive. And Vali stood, one foot lunged against the seat as if he were weightless in the balanced boat and pushed the vessel the rest of the distance into Drakame’s harbor.
Ailsa made the trembling climb down the steep cliffside, cursing her poor footing and the beautiful gown that caught on every serrated surface. Her hands were white and numb from the freezing night, which seemed to drop in temperature every minute she stumbled through the dark. She hardly felt the torn calluses bleeding from her anxious grip, leaving a crimson mark on every ledge she traversed.
The moist air found her lungs as she made her way closer to the docks, ignoring the frigid marsh water that seeped through the vulnerable places in her shoes. With only the beams of the full moon to guide her, she followed the sounds of distant shouting. The village was dark, light from the feast snuffed out when the vessel floated an obvious distance from the docks. It stopped some ways away in the small harbor, the shallows not allowing the great ship to come any closer.
The chieftains were gathered at the docks by the time she made it down the cliff, where she leaned against the back of the fisherman’s cottage to catch her breath, remaining concealed by the shadows formed by the torchlight lining the harbor. A lone man stood at the top of the steps of the pier, but the hood adorning his head darkened any defining detail of his face. She could only see he wore a dark green cloak that hung to his knees and embroidered with gold so flawless the torchlight transformed the leafing into a living blaze. His posture was one of casual charm, asserting he wasn’t threatened to face an entire village alone.
The figure was tall, masculine appearing. His cloak was tailored to fit his broad shoulders perfectly, tapering in at the sides to flatter his narrow waist. He placed both hands on his hips, revealing no sheaths and no weapons, just long legs made of lean muscle and curiously tight pants. She’d never seen clothes like these, not even the ones described in the stories her father told her of the English men.
Lattimer stepped forward, facing the stranger several strides from the bottom step. “Are you the one who has brought war to the North?” A simple question loaded with accusation; the man shrugged off the weight of it.
“I did notbringthe war, Ostman. Iamthe war. Your kind has stolen something that does not belong to you, and I want it back. Return the Tether and we will leave these shores clean and bloodless.” Ailsa thought his voice sounded like the sea, calm on the surface yet full of peril, pulling her deeper like a riptide. He could drown her world with his tongue alone.
“What does thisTetherlook like? Where did it come from? Who stole it? You ask for something of which we have no knowledge of and refuse to explain—” Lattimer’s words were cut off with a strangled sound, he clutched his throat to find a breath. The man’s only movement had been a clenched fist.
“It is not my problem you are all toofoolishto understand a basic demand. I will do your gods a service and purge this world of your ignorance,” he hissed. Lattimer fell to his knees, his shaved head falling over as he continued to struggle.“Does the nameLedgermean anything to you, heathen?”
Ailsa’s own chest seemed to starve for air as she watched him, hardly hearing her father’s name over the thready pulse in her ears. Had her father followed his ambition too far? Could he have been involved with creatures of myth and fallen into the misfortunes of one their own legends? She had no way of knowing, but that didn’t ease the tension pulling her heart into pieces. One thing was for certain, her people were promised certain death if this man’s power was as omnipotent as it appeared.