Dolor and Shadow

by Angela Chrysler

  When, at last, her body stilled, she breathed in the air thick with vapor. Her head flopped about on the ground and she stared stupidly at the bowl. She gazed for a long while and contemplated moving it away, but with every second, it became harder to think and a thick, dense cloud pushed down against her thoughts.

  Kallan shook her head, which proved to be the worst idea yet. Thoughts jumbled, colliding into one another until her mind was plunged into disarray and she lay, panting on the floor and waiting for the clutter to settle.

  Her breath slowed and she tried to think again, but nothing came. A familiar gleam caught her eye and she reached, taking up one of the links of the chain.

  Smooth, silver-black metal shimmered in the distant light. Abrupt panic leapt and her heart jumped, breaking through the daze that suppressed her. All at once, she was on her knees, clawing at the floor, panting through nervous huffs of breath until dizziness pulled her head to the side and she wavered, falling to the jagged stone that mercilessly dug at her flesh.

  “Dvergar,” she breathed.

  Her hand flew to her neck and Kallan remembered. The back of her throat burned with want to cry. Her precious pendant was lost to the earth.

  With a desperation that pushed her beyond the haze, Kallan wiped the sting from her eyes. The chain was bulky and heavy in her stiff, swollen fingers. With as much strength as she could muster, Kallan pulled.

  The metal didn’t give.

  After two more feeble attempts that left her drained of energy and dizzy, she remembered the Seidr. Finding the energy within her core was almost impossible. Collecting it through the miasma was harder. Sporadic gusts of Seidr pulsed through her bonds. The metal shook and whined, protesting the abuse it endured, but remained fastened hard to the floor.

  Despair increased with every failed attempt, and Kallan blasted the chain again and again. She fought back the fog, but with the bulk of her Seidr so far out of reach, she could not weaken the forged craft of the Dvergar.

  A final pulse through the metal took the last of her motivation, and, exhausted, Kallan dropped her palms to the stone, inviting fresh cuts to her hands. Her head spun with a nausea that swayed back and forth like the sea tosses a ship in a storm. A cold, shallow chuckle crept through her blood, increasing until it became a sadistic laugh. The sound stirred a rage that soon vanished. Lacking the coordination to move and the interest to try, Kallan listened to the gritty sound of the laughter.

  An inner voice beneath the cloud screamed for her to look, to move, to fight, but a greater part of her, most of her, ignored it despite knowing the voice inside her head was right. Stones clicked together and a fired roared to life, pushing back the shadows.

  Kallan winced against the sudden stab that gouged her eyes as a fragrant fog of orange and red wafted into the air. From tangy to sweet, the stench pummeled her mouth. Each flavor took its turn at dominance, never fully mingling into a single odor strong with flavor. It burned and she shook her head. Pain seemed to be the only thing that could permeate the cloud. Pain alone seemed to motivate her.

  A variety of cuts and blood, both dried and fresh, covered her hands. The white chemise she had donned for bed two nights ago was shredded and smudged. Streaks of red and black blotted the fabric to match her legs. Kallan gulped in the hopes of easing the nausea and closed her eyes against the swaying floor. Deep voices rose from the shadows, passing between a sharp staccato and a guttural drawl. She knew the sound, but it hurt to remember why.

  The heavy clod of a boot thundered through the cave and dropped. Once. Twice. Thrice to the floor, then slammed hard into her side. Shards exploded in her torso, accompanying several cracks as she fell against the cave wall and back to the floor, held in place by the chains. Her head rebounded against the stone, imploding a wave through her head that spun like a whirlwind, urging nausea.

  Fresh cuts sliced her shoulders as she fell, adding to the myriad of pain.

  Get up, a small voice from behind her iron wall shouted.

  But I don’t want to, she said back.

  The dragon awakened, roared with every breath Kallan pushed through her chest. Something warm and wet fell onto her face, suffocating her, choking her. She knew she should move, but not caring enough to listen to the voice, Kallan stayed, not bothering to budge from the floor.

  The guttural growls of foreign syllables barked at her. She attempted to decipher each sound, picking them apart a grunt at a time, and was surprised at how easy it was. But after a few seconds, she became disinterested, too heavy with fatigue to try, and abandoned her efforts.

  The syllables changed to something familiar and, with an added tinge of resentment, the voice belonging to the boot barked.

  “Where is it?”

  Kallan heaved through the heat that smothered her, trying to understand the spoken words. Cold, hard fingers clamped around her neck and pulled her from the ground, freeing her from the stifling heat. It took her a moment to realize the heat was her own hot breath caught beneath a sheet of hair that had fallen onto her face.

  “The pouch, Drui,” it barked. “Where?”

  The chains scraped the floor as he jostled her.

  True to the stories, his eyes were large and black. A pale complexion, much like her own, was buried somewhere beneath a wild, black mane of beard and hair. He wore a thick tunic fashioned of heavy, brown wool over his large chest.

  Skeletal was the farthest thing from her mind as a pair of wide shoulders, spanning a hefty frame, secured his thick neck. Muscle toned his arms and torso with the kind of brawn a worker could only get from the mines or the forge.

  He coldly dropped her to the ground and Kallan winced against the new wave of lacerations before his boot found her gut. Again, she gasped, losing the muscle control to regain breath against the second explosion of ribs cracking.

  “Blainn.”

  The boot stopped mid-swing.

  “That’s enough.” There was a growl in that command.

  Through the haze, Kallan lifted her eyes for a chance to look upon her savior.

  Though as muscular and brawny as the first, he was taller and wider by comparison. He had the same fair skin and round, black eyes, but his left cheek was marked with a scar that spanned his left cheekbone, from the corner of his mouth to the side of his eye. His grotesque appearance churned her nausea.

  He uttered something in their native tongue, dismissing the one called Blainn and crouching down beside her.

  What do you want? she thought, too weak to speak.

  “Your pouch,” he said with an unkindness that crawled up Kallan’s back. “Where is it?”

  Where am I? she tried to ask, but her throat had swollen shut and it was all she could do to breathe.

  He crouched closer, bringing his wide nose inches from hers. She could taste the stale earth and putrid sulfur on his clothes. She knew that flavor…that smell, but struggled to remember why. The memory was too old to place.

  “The only reason why you still breathe,” he said, “is because we can’t find it. Cooperate. Blainn can only be controlled for a short time, before even I lose status.”

  Kallan shifted a swollen eye to Blainn, who hungrily waited for the go-ahead to continue kicking.

  “I say again,” he repeated. “Where is the pouch?”

  I don’t have it, she tried to say, but her voice failed to obey. She tried something else, something easier.

  “Tak’n,” Kallan croaked and coughed.

  Fire shook her body, and a tear slipped from her eye.

  “Who?” The firelight caught his scar.

  Kallan thought to answer, but choked on the fear that they would hunt Rune next. The voice in her head screamed in objection, but only a whisper reached her. She could not speak. She could not move and, instead, waited for Blainn’s judgment. Within that suspended moment, her mind passed in and out of worry. She thought of Rune and wondered if he had taken Astrid and ridden on without her.

  He would be in Gunir by now, she p
ondered, then wondered if he lived.

  The cloud from the bowl seemed to thicken as it settled down closer, heavier, determined to bury her alive in its bitter tang. It was growing harder to think again. Memory vanished with the voice in her head. Blainn roared, and she stopped caring again.

  Another explosion erupted in her side.

  Gasping, Kallan rolled, clutching her torso. Her heartbeat drummed, pushing the blood through her as if desperately pumping the life back into her. Each beat made her acutely aware of every ache, every bruise, every break.

  The room spun. Her stomach violently leapt in time to the pulsing of her blood. She convulsed and vomited, closing her eyes against the spasms that returned again and again.

  A sudden, searing chill burned her back, following the length of her spine, and splitting her skin in two. She gasped, holding back a violent scream. Her hand flew to her back and she sobbed, relieved to feel that her skin had not really split in two.

  Nerves. She remembered her lessons with Gudrun in the Southeastern Deserts. Just nerves. The skin hadn’t split at all.

  Kallan touched something hot and wet and recognized her own vomit. Another wave of nausea rose. Shuddering, she fell back to her side, hoping to ease the vertigo. A fire crackled in the distance, filling her with a desire, a need, to look upon the light in the darkness.

  She winced and shifted her gaze to the light, fixing her eyes on the lively fire that roared in the center of the cave. Blainn was gone, but the Scarred One now stood beside the fire with a third.

  This one was different. With a smaller frame, he was slightly shorter, and thinner. He looked younger. Considerably younger. They spoke in the Common Tongue. She strained to hear over the incessant pulse as her heart worked to move the blood through every cut and bruise.

  “Did you find him, Nordri?”

  “We found the trail several paces off where we think he landed. From there, he headed north. We tracked him to the main road of Gunir, but didn’t follow further. Any closer and we’d have the Ljosalfar war-men on us.”

  “And the pouch?” the Scarred One asked.

  Nordri shook his head.

  “No sign of it anywhere. She may have stashed it somewhere. Durin thinks she left it back in Lorlenalin.”

  “Durin would think that,” the Scarred One said. His eyes glazed over with thought as the clod of a boot, heavier than Blainn’s, resonated through the cave. Another Dvergr as wide as Blainn and almost identical in stature joined Nordri and the Scarred One beside the fire. His eyes were significantly smaller, appearing beady, and were set deeper than what seemed natural. Kallan could only assume this was Durin.

  “Report,” came the Scarred One’s order.

  Durin took his cue from the commander and answered in Common Tongue.

  “Their current state has left them vulnerable. An attack now would assure a win.” His voice carried as if he wanted Kallan to hear. “Wipe them out, I say. Extinct.”

  The bowl’s cloud muted any protests she would have had, so she lay submissively instead, listening to the discussion.

  The Scarred One silently mulled over the proposition. There was a long silence before anyone spoke again.

  “Motsognir?” Nordri pressed.

  Motsognir, Kallan mused.

  A forgotten name surfaced from the depths of her ancient memory then fizzled, failing to push through.

  “Bring her.”

  The words rang through like a death sentence and the last of her worry fell numb. Throwing a spiteful look to the broken heap that was Kallan, Motsognir stepped into obscurity beyond the light. The plod of heavy boots returned and, just as Blainn came into view, everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 37

  A bowl struck the ground with a clang like a poorly tuned bell, waking Kallan with a startled jerk. Her pulse pounded her temple with a merciless hammer that twisted its way into her writhing stomach.

  Pulling her legs to her chest, Kallan hugged herself against the pain that flipped between nausea and indifference. The bitter tang in the air lingered along with the dull throbbing, the sharp stabbing, and the hot, searing bursts that ripped her body apart. Her chains scraped the floor with every miniscule movement. She tried to move, but cringed instead, then groaned.

  The monotonous drip was gone. Through the corner of her eye, Kallan caught the faint light of the Dvergar’s fire. A bit of cave wall jutted out a ways between her and the fire, blocking most of the Dvergar from view. It was enough to outline a pillar of limestone that had not been there before and, at once, she saw it and understood. While she slept, they had relocated.

  It didn’t take long for her to decide she didn’t care, and her head slumped to the side.

  Boot, she thought as she stared at a large, square-ish boot, coated with mud. She made an effort to lift her head, following the brown trousers up to the tunic worn loosely over a pair of shoulders beneath a long, black overcoat.

  It was a fine overcoat, beautifully made with black leather and lined with thick, black rabbit fur. It was an overcoat only one of importance would wear. She twitched at the face peering down at her. She was half expecting Motsognir, with his regal commands and the mannerisms taught only to those of the king’s high court.

  This Dvergr, like the others, was as tall as the Alfar, as tall as the tallest of Men and just as burly as his comrades. They all had beards, wild, black, scruffy things, the way some men let grow where nature takes it.

  His beard was shorter, tamer, and calmer than the rest. His clothes were a bit cleaner. He had the build and strength honed by the mines, but the astuteness of a scholar. A cold, silent shadow lingered in his eye somewhere between pensive and calculative. Kallan wasn’t sure if it was his well-groomed appearance or the lack of cruelty in his round, black eyes. Regardless, something about this Dvergr eased her.

  He held her gaze as easily as she held his and they studied each other in turn, each of them captivated, neither of them moving, until a grim voice called from the fire.

  “Ori.”

  Ori didn’t move at the sound of his name.

  The shuffle of a boot and a heavy plod soon followed. Still, Ori kept his eyes locked on hers. A heavy hand fell onto Ori’s shoulder, pulling him out of his trance, and, without a word, he walked back to the fire, leaving the other Dvergr there with her.

  Kallan diverted her attention to the new guard and her heart fell, catching Nordri’s eerie gaze. He crouched down until his face was a breath away.

  “Eat or don’t.” Nordri brushed a too-gentle hand against her cheek. Her stomach churned and she gave a startled jerk, but failed to pull away, keeping his pale hand on her face.

  “Truth is, if we were going to kill you, we wouldn’t have waited until now to do it.” He grinned with a wide, malicious look to his eye. “And we wouldn’t have used poison.”

  Kallan jerked away too weak and too wounded to throw him a glower.

  Nordri flashed a smile that upturned her nerves, and, slowly, he scraped her body with his eyes. After ensuring he had a good long stare at her exposed flesh, he returned to the fire. There, he settled and shifted himself into place, and flourished another grin that seemed to linger there in the dark long after it was gone.

  Kallan glanced at the bowl Ori had left her. It didn’t take her long to muster up the nerve to eat the unidentifiable slop. It hit her stomach like a hammer and stirred up her nausea again. When she was done, she fell back to the floor, letting her head strike the stone.

  In the dark, she lay awake, straining to hear a familiar word among them. Within minutes, on a less-than-empty belly, the gruff voices and guttural sounds lulled her into a deadened sleep.

  * * *

  Five Dvergar dragged her to the depths of the caves. Motsognir, Nordri, Ori, Durin, and Blainn. Blainn was the muscle. He was first to kick and last to think and had a talent for cruelty. Kallan decided she liked him the least.

  It didn’t take long to realize Durin was his older brother. Having the advantage o
f being a few years older, he also had the advantage of having a few years more sense. It added up to nothing really, though it did make him less reckless, which meant he was less likely to kick, but more creative when he did.

  In other ways, Nordri’s cruelty far exceeded Blainn and Durin put together in ways that neither dared go. His specialty was mental. He wondered aloud why they fed her, why they took her, why they clothed her, and made too many hints and gestures that set her into a quelled panic every time.

  It didn’t take her long to realize Motsognir was there to keep them all in check. Being the leader of their assorted assembly, he was usually successful, but only when he was around to step in.

  Ori, on the other hand, eluded her. She couldn’t determine if he was there to learn, or there to record the events. He spoke less than she did and, seemed to disappear altogether for hours at a time. When he was around, she often caught him staring, watching her, engrossed so deeply it took a jab from Motsognir to bring him out of it. There was only one thing she was able to determine about Ori. Of all of them, he was the least of her worries.

  Blainn’s boot regularly woke her and she frequently passed into sleep with Durin’s fist. Aside from the beatings and the occasional bowl of slop, they kept their distance. They always spoke Dvergar unless there was something specific they wanted her to hear, which always involved a slew of suggestions from Nordri that ended with a sickening glint in his eye.

  * * *

  Day and night didn’t exist in the caves. Time blended into one long, endless night where there was only the darkness, the Dvergar, and nothing. The haze and the bitter tang always wafted nearby with displays of red and orange, keeping Kallan drugged, dizzy, and daft. When she thought anything at all, she thought of Lorlenalin and Daggon, of Eilif and Aaric, and of Gudrun and the children. Once, she thought of Rune and of how she would gut him first chance she had to take Astrid back. But mostly, she didn’t think.