by Robert Jones
The ribbiting of frogs and the silent air answered her.
"Fight me!" her scream was cut short.
The smoky form of a body rushed from the deep shadows. Hellfire eyes burning out in the night. Two arms materialised from the shade and wrapped their claws into Isolde's face. She swung out, but the smoke sucked in her fists and left them sailing through thin air. The eyes burned in rage. Erik hurled his body at it and passed right through tumbling down into the pool below. The cloudy claws dug into Isolde's neck, forcing her to her knees. Her heart raced, her breath cut off. She groped at the hands around her neck but found nothing to pry away. Erik shot back up the hill, his hands full of frogs. The blood eyes snapped at him. His fists clamped shut crushing the frogs into his palms. Without a sound, the smoke faded away and Isolde gulped the cold night air down.
***
The next day, Harald stirred and finally awoke from his long sleep. Skaldi came to him and treated him with herbs and food, making sure that he would survive before his departure.
It was then that Isolde and Erik came to the old man with the news from the night before.
"You are sure it was the same markings as that on the lamb?" Skaldi asked her, referring to the plagued animals back in Eyndale.
"Look for yourself," she said pointing to Bjorn as he played with the skull.
"You must take everyone home, Isolde." Skaldi's voice was firm, "they call this sort of thing sympathetic magic... She hopes to curse us, to black out our own eyes!"
"How?" Erik asked sharply.
Skaldi's eyes were wide when he turned on him, "through belief, my boy. And believe me when I say it. It is time for you all to go home. That trick with the frogs was quick thinking, but she is slippery and won't fool for the same thing twice."
Bjorn called out, "old wives' tales from an old man."
"Don't be so foolish," Skaldi said, "there is wisdom in the old tales."
Skaldi embraced Isolde and held her tightly in the folds of his grey robes.
"I am sorry," he said with sullen eyes, "but I will return to Eyndale as soon as I can and see what has come of poor Harald."
He stepped away from her and looked at Isolde and Erik together, "keep your eyes open and look after each other."
And with that, he slipped off westward into the thick woods.
Erik turned to Isolde and motioned toward Harald's tent. The smell was overwhelming as if the air around the wounded Harald was infected with rot. He was a wretched sight, Isolde thought that he had lost twenty pounds. His face was gaunt, a pale yellow clinging to his skin. His one eye was dark and bruised but Skaldi had changed the bandages of the other and at least they were clean. Harald was weak but sat up on his own. The introductions were quick and Harald hissed out from his hoarse voice and cracked lips short answers.
"Will you come with us?" Erik asked full of enthusiasm.
Harald's words came like bone dry air passing through a parched desert, "I won't leave you." He said, his eye looking at Isolde.
She smiled at him in pity, "my poor Harald, maybe it is better to meet you back home?"
"No," he said.
Isolde could feel the strain on his throat and grimaced at the pain she imagined. She left the tent with Erik who spoke to her in hushed tones,
"He will die out there, the storms grow wilder further north and he'll freeze to death in the cold."
"He wants to come," she sighed, "we'll send him home only if we have to."
She hated saying it, but the words of Skaldi came back into her mind, You just have to decide what is for the best at the time, and sometimes that is only a choice between the lesser of evils. She hoped she was making the right decision. How on earth would Harald survive the journey, she thought, how would he survive Orlog?
CHAPTER XIV
The group had been on the march for days. Harald slowed them little to start with but Isolde could see him struggling the further they went. His face had begun to fill out again but was still yellow and rarely seen looking beyond his feet. His shoulders were slumped as if he were pulling an invisible weight up and down the hills. Erik took Isolde aside from the others more than once in concern.
The cold autumn forest began to give way to the bitter frosts of the north. The pines grew more sparse and the hills less prominent. Ice formed around the creeks they crossed and the ground itself became powdered with a thin layer of new-born snow. If it weren't for the black skies and the howling winds, Isolde thought the world looked like a winter wonderland. But the weather was relentless, with bitter cold gales that picked up ice and sent silvered slivers flying into their skin.
"She feels us coming," Erik called to Isolde as they battled headlong into the wind and ice, "the witch has summoned the mighty Mjolkum to blow us away!"
"How much further?" she called back.
"The Ice-Lake by tonight, maybe. Then I don't know," Erik said.
"Harald won't make it."
"I Will!" Harald cried as he stumbled up to them, "I won't leave you alone with him." His one eye glared up at Erik.
"Look, Harald," Erik said, "Bjorn is not doing too well either, maybe you can take him back?"
Isolde looked over to Bjorn and Sven. Erik was right, Bjorn didn't look well, his eyes were dark with exhaustion. The man was slumped against a tree but he waved Erik away as though he had heard what was being said.
"I am with Isolde," Harald said to Erik, "I will go where she goes."
"So be it. But I am not carrying you home if this cold takes you," Erik said.
Isolde was amazed by Harald's strength. He looked like a frozen corpse. The yellow in his face had come out stronger as the life fled from his skin. He had his fur hood wrapped around his head but still, his teeth chattered incessantly. He was struggling, Isolde thought he may even be dying as black blood slowly stained the white linen where his eye should have been.
"Thank you," she said taking Harald in an embrace. She could feel his body shuddering from the cold.
By the time they reached the end of the great woods, Harald could barely move. Isolde moved slowly with him and watched as his body went from constant shivers to stillness and then the odd involuntary spasm. She was holding him up and was sure he would collapse without her. They could see the edge of the tree line, the great pine sentinels that guarded the northern borders. They stood magnificently tall, far greater than those in the south and were crowned with the shimmering silver of snow and ice. The others were waiting. Erik and Sven looked out over the summit in which they stood, but Bjorn was slumped against a tree, his head low between his knees.
"We made it," she said with encouragement to Harald, but he could barely keep his eye open and had no strength to even look up.
They hobbled up the last slope and she let him down gently against the trunk of one of the great tree guardians in an attempt to block the wind.
Isolde came to Erik whose hand was held out to the north and she gasped at the view. From atop their slope, they could see the land around them for miles. Their position dropped off into a great plain of white tundra. To the east the mountains climbed up to unfathomable heights, disappearing into the chaos of Mjolkum's storm clouds. To the west, the edge of the forest ran as far as the eye could see, and the great plains stretched out with it and the glistening of a distant river snaking its way over the horizon could just be seen. But the sight in front of her was what took her breath away. The snowy plains extended out in a great barren field for miles until it kissed the white edge of a great lake. Its face sparkled like solid crystal. It was like an endless ocean of ice that climbed right up into the shoulders of the mountains themselves.
They made their camp in the tundra at the bottom of the slope. The day was fading and the wind there was less harsh. They set their tents to buffer the wind, allowing a fire to be stoked and wrapped Harald up as best they could. Bjorn was struggling, it was only now in the calm of their camp that Isolde could see how bad the man had become. His face was deathly pale, it looked
as though the meat had been sucked away and the skin stretched over bare bone. His head was slumped again, his gaze unfocused as though he were living some far off memory. But Isolde knew his mind was vacant. His eyes, they were so void, dark rings spread as though he hadn't slept in weeks. He looked hollow.
"What is wrong, Bjorn?" she asked across the fire.
She saw the effort it took for him to lift his head, his eyes wavering to find focus on her.
"I... I'm... okay," he said slowly in his thick throaty accent.
"You're not okay," Erik said, "go get some rest."
Sven got up and helped Bjorn to his tent. Isolde watched them go.
"They won't make it out here," Erik said to Isolde.
"What do we do?" she sighed leaning forward to feel the warmth of the fire.
"We send them home. All three of them."
"Harald won't go," she said.
"Tell him too," Erik said, "it's for his own good."
"Maybe we should all go home."
Erik shook his head, "we've come too far."
"I don't know what to do," she said.
"Well, you have to make a decision." Erik stood up and left Isolde to the fire and her thoughts.
***
"Isooldee!" a voice cried out in the early morning.
She bolted up from her sleep full of confusion. Harald... Harald's tent, her senses came back, I fell asleep in Harald's tent...
"Isolde!" It was Erik, he was calling from outside.
Mjolkum had returned with full force during the night, just as Erik had said it would. The wall of the tent billowed in and out, but inside it was warm and the air was still.
"What's going on," Harald murmured now awake.
"I don't know," she said pulling on a boot, "wait here and I'll be back."
She slid out the door and the world was in chaos. The wind blew in every direction, ice and snow stinging her warm face and howling through her ears.
"Isoooldeee!" Erik called out but she couldn't find the voice, the storm was too wild, she could barely see her arm in front of her. He thudded into her, his face crusted with ice and frozen solid.
"Isolde!" his eyes were wild, "come look!"
He took her by the hand and dragged her north into the worst of the winds. The warmth had fled from her face, her ears felt like they were being ripped off with razor blades and her nose burned numb.
"What's going on?" she called over the wind.
But all he said was come and pulled her along faster.
When he stopped she could barely make out the outline of Sven, he was crouching low, his heads bowed down out of the wind.
"Sven found it this morning!" Erik cried out.
He crouched down and brushed the snow off the ground, cold steel poked through, and then he gripped a hidden shaft and pulled it up out of the snow. A mighty battle axe. Isolde gasped in astonishment.
"It's Wulfric's," she cried with wide eyes.
They took the axe back to the camp and squeezed into Harald's tent. Isolde had insisted on it.
"I don't like it," said a fur-wrapped Harald in a hoarse voice, "we should return and tell the Jarl."
Erik scoffed at the idea, "There are five of us, all fighters. We can take Orlog."
"If she has killed Wulfric, how are we to do better?" Harald's voice was straining, his one good eye staring down Erik.
Isolde saw the look, "he might not be dead, Harald," she said, "we didn't find a body."
Harald shook his head, "all the more reason to send for help."
"I don't think so," Erik cut in, "if he's still alive, he'll be dead by the time we get help. We need to save him now."
"This is ridiculous," Harald said as he broke his gaze and looked at the three in turn, "look at us, you know the stories, she'll tear us apart."
Isolde noticed that the yellow in Harald's face had waned and the natural colour was returning. His dark brown eye darted between them.
Sven spoke now with his deep throaty accent, "maybe he's right, Erik, How can we go on with Harald and Bjorn the way they are?"
"Where is Bjorn?" Erik snapped, "let me hear what he says."
Sven slipped out of the tent to fetch the man.
"I won't leave a man out there to die!" Erik continued, "and you owe him your life, Isolde."
"I owe it to Harald too, and you owe me yours," her voice was sharp, she didn't like Erik's tone.
"Well," said Erik, "I will save this man, alone if I have too."
Isolde buried her face in her hands and wanted to scream.
"You have to make a decision," said Erik, and Isolde knew what he meant.
She took her hands away from her face and looked at Harald and Erik in turn. She took a deep breath. Arrgghhh Eriiiik! Sven's scream cut through the winds stopping the hearts of the three in the tent. Isolde and Erik snapped a look at each other and scrambled from the tent. By the time they got to Bjorn's shelter, Sven was rolling in the snow outside weeping hysterically. Isolde ripped the tent open. The putrid smell of rotting flesh flooded out. The air was heavy and humid, and Bjorn lay deep in his furs face up, his face contorted by a silent scream. He was dead. The rings around his eyes had stretched deep down his cheeks, jet black with obsidian veins tracing the snow white skin on his face. It was as if the darkness of space had burrowed its way into his sockets and sucked the life out from within. He was a withered husk of a man. Orlog's sigil was burned into his forehead.
"Look," Erik spat as he knelt down and picked up a horn from Bjorn's things.
"It's from the skull," Isolde said in shock.
"I told him to throw it away," Erik said, "idiot wanted to make it into a cup..."
Isolde noticed a tear form in Erik's eye.
"I am sorry," she said, coming to him in an embrace.
Erik dropped the horn on Bjorn's body and left the tent. Isolde stayed. She looked at the Bjorn in shock. His expression, everything about it made her shudder, he died terrified. It was clear to her. By the time she left the tent, Erik and Sven were sobbing together by the fire.
"Erik," she called, "do you still want to kill this hag?"
He turned slowly but said nothing.
"Sven, can you take Harald home? Tell my father what is happening."
"Will he come?" Sven asked with a hoarse voice.
Isolde nodded and went to Harald's tent. She explained the body of Bjorn and Harald nodded.
"I won't leave you," he said.
"Yes, you will, Harald," she looked deep into his good eye, "if you love me, you will do this for me."
She leant forward and kissed Harald. Her lips lightly brushing against his. It had taken him by surprise. He kissed her back and put his hand through her hair.
"I don't trust them," he said.
She leant close to his ear and whispered, "then trust me."
She kissed his neck and stood back up.
"Get home safe, Harald. I will see you at home."
***
Mjolkum was furious. He sent winds and ice and snow headlong into Isolde and Erik, forcing the pair to inch themselves on at a snail's pace. Isolde had no idea which way they were heading, the very air around them was a maelstrom of whirling chaos. She could only hope that by forcing herself into the worst of the storm that she would reach its source.
The day dragged as they fought for every step and Isolde was exhausted by the time they reached the icy shore of the frozen lake. When she viewed the land last night from the hilly crest, she thought it would have only taken them the morning to get there, but now the afternoon was passing and nightfall would come on them soon. There was no shelter for them here, the plains were a barren waste of snow and ice, the air so cold and forceful hat she had lost all feeling long ago.
"Look!" Erik cried out moving onto the edge of the ice.
Isolde's feet slipped under her as she stepped up onto the pale-blue sheet. Careful steps forward and it was clear what Erik had found.
"Blood?" she called out.
"Wulfric's maybe?"
"Look, it's over there too."
Isolde gestured further along the ice. The deep crimson pools were not big, but they stood out against the glassy ice below and were easy to spot. Erik crouched down and ran his hand over the stain.
"It's frozen solid," he said.
They followed the blood spots as though they were bread crumbs from a long forgotten fairy tale. The ice was rock solid and Isolde had a hard time keeping herself up with the wind pushing her back. The day was failing them and in the setting twilight, her heart faltered as a familiar sound swept by her on the wind. Laughter. Light giggling like children at play floating in and out of the winds around them.
"Do you hear them?" she cried out to Erik in panic.
"Spirits, Isolde, do not listen!"
The laughter surrounded her ears, a thousand different voices attacking and retreating with the wind. She threw her hands against her ears and scrunched her eyes shut but couldn't escape the sound. Erik reached out and pulled her on.
"Come on," he yelled, "we'll freeze if we don't get off this lake before night."
The pair pushed on, Erik leading Isolde by the hand, chasing the blood across the ice through the dreadful storm. Isolde could feel the cold all around her, but the winds were nothing compared to the slow creep of ice below them. Its frigidity crept up silently, it burrowed deep into her boots until her feet were numb and spread up her legs like an ancient ivy creeping up a wall.
Erik held her hand tight and pulled her ever onward, the wind screamed, the laughter burrowed into her mind, the cold had taken her senses. He pulled her on and on. The sun set and she was blind in the chaotic night. He pulled her on. The wind howled and slammed into her. It was trying to rip apart their grip. It was trying to send her off the ice of this accursed lake. Mjolkum was trying to end her through bitter cold or rotten madness. And then everything stopped. Calm serenity.
They stepped off the ice and passed into a calm new world. Isolde almost collapsed onto Erik but he held her up. Before them was a frozen paradise, there was no wind, the ice and snow did not fly all around but stayed on the ground and roofed the tall pines and spruces that grew far apart from each other. Ice-tipped green grass covered the small hills and birds sung their evening songs. Isolde looked around in shock, she turned her head back to where they had come, there was a wall, a barrier of spiralling winds full of ice and snow that she could barely see through, it stretched far out to the left and right and arched its way far above her head, she followed it all the way around. A perfect sphere... she thought as the great dark mountain climbed before them and pierced the chaos. Erik put his hand into the wall of wind.
