Astrid glared at him. “Then at least tell me what this is all about. Why did she enchant him? What are the conditions of his pact with her?”
Again, Jorgen shook his head. “I cannot answer that without telling you who Norga is. I am sorry.”
“Can you at least tell me why the wind obeys me?” She was desperate to learn at least that much.
“Because you ask it very nicely?” Jorgen answered with a wry grin, and Astrid blushed, remembering her flippant remark to Bjorn. It seemed he’d shared it with Jorgen.
“So I do.” She stared him down, and at last Jorgen shook his head.
“That is the biggest mystery of all. I don’t know why you have the loyalty of the wind.”
Astrid tossed her head in disgust. “You have given me nothing.”
“I am sorry—”
“Danger.” The wind whispered in her ear. The first time it had spoken to her so clearly.
“Where?” she breathed, saw Jorgen was listening to the noise in the trees. No doubt giving him the same message.
“Not here. The bear is in danger.”
“Where is he?” she choked out.
“Come.”
“Jorgen, Bjorn is in trouble. The wind will lead us.”
Jorgen looked at her agape. “You are not going. I’ll go. There are others in this forest I can call on, too.”
The wind tugged at her cloak and Astrid let it draw her out the clearing, ignoring Jorgen. “As fast as I can run,” she told it, beginning to do just that.
“My lady, please.” His call was desperate and she felt sorry for him, but didn’t even turn round. Bjorn needed help.
The wind seemed to push her, support her, make her faster, and testing a theory, she jumped, holding her cloak wide and felt the wind lift her. Her feet touched the forest floor lightly, and she leapt again.
“My lady, wait.”
Jorgen’s voice was faint, and Astrid risked a backwards glance. Realized she had left the vedfe so far behind she could no longer see him through the trees.
She was almost flying through the forest. Flying to her lover’s aid.
Chapter Twenty
Bjorn looked down, stunned, at the body of Raidar, tumbled like a bundle of sticks over the rocks below.
He’d been right to patrol as far as he could go in one day and still be back by nightfall.
With this death, the mystery of the yggren deepened. For one of his own to take Raidar’s life was a sacrilege of the highest order. So taboo, the murderer must surely contemplate suicide. Who else but another yggren could take on Raidar and win?
He had managed it with Sigurd, but he was the son of a disgraced Vanir, a demi-god. Bjorn knew few in the human realm could match his magic, or his strength.
Raidar must have gone up against Norga herself if another yggren had not done this. And he had lost.
He wondered how long Raidar had lain there. His fellow yggren could not know, they would have taken the body if they had.
He considered moving Raidar himself, and thought better of it. The yggren were likely to take offense at his interference. He would get word to them, and let them care for their own.
Norga was desperate if she was responsible. While the yggren had supported the balance, they had not actively opposed or hated Norga. That would change now.
Bjorn turned away from the tragic sight of a powerful force turned to matchwood, and started down the narrow path. He would skirt around the foot of the mountain where Raidar met his end and head back home through the forest.
He had hardly taken two steps from the edge when something landed on his back. Cruel, tight arms came around his neck and tried to lever him up by the throat, strangling him.
Gasping in shock, Bjorn twisted his head sideways and caught a glimpse of a silver-grey yggren. It took the strain, straddling him as it tried to hang Bjorn by lifting him in a chokehold.
Fool twice over.
He’d dismissed the possibility of another yggren killing Raidar, and he’d assumed the killer was long gone. But Sigurd had broken taboos himself, by siding with Norga. There was a rot within the ranks of the yggren, and he had looked at only one of the bad apples, assuming the rest were still untouched.
He threw a freezing spell upwards, his eyes blinded by spots of bright light as he struggled to suck in air. It worked for a few precious seconds, enough for him to slip from the chokehold and turn, snarling, on the traitor.
As with Sigurd, the yggren shrugged the spell off in a moment, screaming at him, its eyes protruding from its face in rage and grief.
“You killed your own.” Bjorn’s voice was rough and scratched, barely audible after the crushing hold.
He could not run. An yggren was faster than he’d ever be. And this one had an edge. It did not care for its own life. He felt its elemental magic resisting his own, a stalemate that left physical strength and intelligence the only decider.
The yggren leapt at him, and Bjorn charged, skidding underneath it, so they were both forced to turn again on the narrow mountain ledge. A cliff to one side, a solid wall of stone to the other.
It surely did not attack him on Norga’s orders. Her plan was nothing if he should die. She needed him to fail, but most of all, she needed him alive.
“You killed Raidar, and now you want someone to kill you?” Bjorn called to it. “I will do it gladly. Just tell me why.”
With another shriek, the yggren whipped out a long arm, clawed at him with lethal fingers, and Bjorn could see all reason had gone. It was maddened beyond thought, beyond any sensible reply.
Bjorn threw up a wall of fire between them, stretching across the whole of the path. He felt the immediate push of magic as the yggren countered him. Searching for a way through the flames.
There was no way through, but he wondered how long he could hold the barrier against the battering of its power.
Then, without warning, the yggren launched off the mountain.
“Shhhreeeee.”
Its scream echoed off the cliffs as it fell, but Bjorn had seen its eyes, its bloodlust, and was not fooled. He collapsed his fire wall and braced, ready for the yggren to return from some ledge or foothold below, but even though he’d expected it, he flinched as it shot up like an arrow, its trajectory slamming it into Bjorn, pinning him to the rocks.
He roared, fighting its thin, wiry strength with his weight and bulk. Desperation allowed him to punch through its magical buffer, flick a tiny flame onto its leg.
“Shhhreeee.” Its cry deafened him. The pain of fire making it wilder, fiercer. Undeterred.
It leant in, its arms crossed against Bjorn’s throat, its feet digging in to the hard rock of the path. Bjorn felt the first flick of panic. Felt the first tongue of fire singe his coat as it crawled up the yggren’s leg.
If the yggren would not yield, would not give in to the flames, they would both burn.
* * *
Astrid rode the wind, and as she rode, an army gathered behind her.
A horn had called from behind, faint through the whistling in her ears. Since then, each place she passed, each time her feet touched the forest floor, a sprite or vedfe seemed to step out of a tree, a rock, or the streams that tumbled through the forest, to run alongside her.
At first she’d thought Jorgen had called them to stop her, but as she looked, startled, into the eyes of a rock nymph, he’d sketched a salute, and begun running at her side.
Every time she leapt, arms holding her cloak out like a pair of wings, she left them behind, but a quick glance over her shoulder showed her they still followed, a forest-hued retinue in grays, browns and greens, silent and strangely intimidating. Their beautiful faces were serious and their feet swift.
Jorgen said he had others he could call on, and he had not lied.
She saw the wind carried her toward a mountain on the far east end of the forest, its steep cliffs and jagged ridges just discernible in the distance. It seemed impossibly far away.
“Hurry,�
� she pleaded. The wind had not spoken again since it whispered to her in the clearing, and she sensed it was expending great energy in lifting her as she ran. It need only have enough strength to get her to Bjorn, and once there, aid her in saving him. She didn’t care how long the walk back was.
They must just get there in time.
* * *
Bjorn fought for his life, desperate as the heat singed him. He clawed at the yggren, trying to push it away as the flames took hold of it, licked their way higher up its body.
It could not end this way.
He’d tried already to douse the flames, but he could no longer get through the shield of ancient magic the yggren threw over them both. It wanted to die. And for some reason, it wanted Bjorn to go with it.
It would not succeed.
With a roar that echoed off the cliffs, he twisted in the yggren’s hold, every muscle, every sinew in his body straining to throw off the living torch hanging on with steel-like fingers.
He could not shake it and the pain of the fire made him half-mad with panic.
A wind sprang up, he could feel it against his fur, and then a gale was blowing, coming out of nowhere.
“Fire to the head,” he heard a voice—Astrid—call out, and before his eyes he saw a flame scooped off the yggren’s burning body by the hand of the wind, and thrown into its face.
With a scream, it finally let go, unable to endure the pain. As it stepped back, the wind, as with Sigurd, breathed on the fire and in a moment, the yggren was a pyre of flame.
Bjorn fell, his sides heaving as he fought for air, fought the pain and fought the fear. Astrid was out of the palace, exposed to danger again.
“Bear.”
He felt her alight next to him as if she were a bird, landing from the air, and she knelt beside him, smoothing his fur, her eyes wide with horror.
“Can you help him?” she cried to someone behind her, and he lifted his head a little way, and saw a stone sprite running up the path, the pale gray of her skin, the silver of her hair, making her swim in and out of focus against the rocks.
“Only Jorgen has enough power for that,” she said, her voice the soft clink of pebbles against each other.
“Then we carry him down to Jorgen. We mustn’t waste a moment.”
Bjorn wanted to ask Astrid how she thought she could carry him two steps, let alone down the mountain to Jorgen, but she scrambled to her feet, and he was shivering too much to get the words out.
“If we help, can you try to lift him?” she whispered, and he knew from her tone she was talking to the wind.
The air strengthened around him, its cold fingers forcing under him, and he lifted a little.
“Please help me,” Astrid called to the stone sprite, and he felt her hands coming under him. They were going to carry him with the wind. He would laugh at the idea, if he could just stop shaking, could open his eyes. They seemed weighed down with rocks.
But then another set of hands took the strain, and another, lifting him to shoulder height, and they began moving down the path, the wind a tight whirlwind beneath him, keeping him stable.
How many sprites and vedfe had Astrid managed to rope into this crazy scheme?
He at last forced his eyes open a crack, and the sight that met him snapped them open wider. He was surrounded by a throng of vedfe, two hundred at least, taking turns to carry his weight, as they moved off the mountain and back into the forest.
Astrid alone would not be replaced, holding him up near his shoulder. Her cheek was smudged with blood, and he realized with shock it was his own.
“Set him down.” The bellow from the path before them could only belong to Jorgen.
“By the gods, Bjorn. Do you want to kill yourself and do us all in? Do you want to break the balance?”
He was lowered slowly to the ground, laid to rest on the forest path as light as an autumn leaf.
“What happened?”
Bjorn wanted to answer, but Jorgen was not looking at him, but Astrid.
“Another yggren. Bjorn set it alight, and it clamped itself to him, trying to burn them both. It was trying to strangle him while they burned.”
“What madness is going on with the yggren?” Jorgen knelt beside him and placed his hands on either side of Bjorn’s neck wound.
“My friend, you test my powers to the limits.”
“Will try to help,” Bjorn gasped out, but he knew in his weakened state, he would be of little use.
“Form a chain,” Jorgen called out, and Bjorn saw the vedfe line up, each one touching the shoulder of the other, the first in line touching Jorgen.
They were sharing what power they had with their leader, and he was giving it all to Bjorn. Bjorn felt it flare within, felt the soothing touch of energy as the pain in his burnt legs and chest receded, as his neck slowly healed.
It stopped long before it needed to, but it was enough. Enough to get him on his feet and back to the palace. Enough to give him time to heal himself.
“I am deeply in your debt.” Bjorn struggled shakily to his feet.
“As we are in yours, my lord,” one of the vedfe answered, and suddenly every one but Jorgen and Astrid was gone.
“Can you walk?” The flecks of blood on Astrid’s cheeks were in stark contrast to her white face. Her voice shook. “Shouldn’t we carry him back?”
It annoyed him that she turned to the vedfe, even though Jorgen could barely stand himself since pouring his power into Bjorn’s healing.
They were so exposed. Neither he nor Jorgen could protect her should Norga choose this moment to strike. If her spies were watching, they’d be foolish not to take this opportunity.
Come to that, what was Astrid doing out of the palace? His lady had a death wish.
Jorgen must have seen his eyes, because he swallowed nervously.
“Can you walk back?” he asked.
“I can.” Bjorn struggled for control. There would be time for arguments later. Besides, his throat hurt too much to speak. He had to whisper. “Astrid get back to the palace. We’ll follow as quickly as possible.”
She looked at him with astonishment. “I am not going back alone. I just raced across the length of the forest to save you.”
“I can’t protect you.” He swayed on his feet, his teeth clenched.
“No. But I can protect you,” she replied, her eyes snapping as angrily as his own.
“Please.” Fighting her, forcing her, was not the point. He was too weak to do it anyway, and it seemed she had Jorgen well and truly under her thumb. “Please.”
“But you are hurt . . .”
“Astrid. Please. I need fear nothing from Norga, whereas you . . .”
She spun in a circle, her fists clenched, her robe swirling around her. “We go together. I’ve just spent the last hour worried you were dead, and now you send me off? No.”
She was so angry she vibrated like a bowstring after the shot. His blood marked her brow and she flung back her head—a warrior princess.
“Keep close, then.” His words were resigned. “We are all vulnerable.”
“The wind is tired,” she agreed, and lifted out an arm, moving her fingers as if she ran them through water. He saw her start at the blood on her hand, and her whole body shuddered. With a cry, she flung herself to her knees next to him, burying her face in his fur.
“I didn’t know what was happening. I was so worried.” She drew back her head and he saw tears streaming down her face. “If I’d been a moment later. . .”
He’d have been dead.
“Come,” he said quietly, nuzzling her, even though for the first time in a long time he wanted to roar until his throat bled that he was trapped in this bear body. He wanted to scoop her up, hold her close.
Carry her home in his arms.
Chapter Twenty-one
It hurt to see Bjorn walking as if on thorns. His every step was tortured as they neared the palace. Jorgen mumbled a farewell as they reached the treeline, startling Astrid.
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She kept forgetting he was there.
She wondered, in one of the strange meanders her mind kept taking on this interminable journey, if Jorgen could set foot out of the forest.
She called out a goodbye, unsure if he’d gone or was still standing there.
Bjorn stumbled ahead of her, his eyes on the ground in front of him, just getting one foot in front of the other.
The sun edged toward the horizon, lighting the dark gray storm clouds to the west with dramatic oranges and reds, and the long shadows made the last part of her journey up the rocky path treacherous.
Bjorn was already at the palace entrance, raising a weary paw to the stone.
When had she fallen so far behind?
The sound of stone grinding on itself galvanized her. The mountain was opening.
She tripped, scraped her hands, and was on her feet and running again before her tired muscles could protest.
Bjorn, leaning against the rock face, collapsed through the entrance as the door slid past him.
Her heart felt lodged in her throat by the time she reached the opening. She couldn’t get enough of the thin, cold air into her lungs.
Blood smeared the floor where Bjorn had fallen, half in and half out of the mountain, and she leapt over his legs. She needed to pull him in.
The door began to rumble shut, the grinding of rock on rock ominous. Astrid grabbed hold of Bjorn’s fur, bending her knees and tugging with all the strength fear gave her.
He slid a fraction and stopped, and gritting her teeth, she hauled at him again. He seemed stuck to the floor.
The stone door hit him mid-back and began pushing him before it.
With a cry of pure panic, Astrid grabbed a back paw in each hand, using Bjorn’s forward momentum to swing him around. If she didn’t get him in before the door closed, his legs would be crushed.
Slowly but surely his body slid inward, and with an echoing thunk, the entrance closed.
Her knees gave way, slamming onto the granite floor, and she shuddered, the pain out of all proportion to the injury.
They were in complete darkness.
Bjorn cried out, making her jump. A hoarse, agonized cry that made every hair on her body rise. A strange rush of air—not her kind—swirled where he lay.
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