Maidensong

by Mia Marlowe

  A distant thunder began to rumble.

  “It’s going to rain,” Rika said.

  “No.” Uncle Ornolf shook his head. “That’s Aeifor you’re hearing. We’re still a good way off, but the cataract is sporting enough to warn of its coming.”

  “It must be enormous,” she said.

  “Ja, that it is.” Ornolf leaned on the steering oar to send the Valkyrie closer to the right bank of the river. “Bjorn, keep an eye out for that big hawthorn. The spot to put in and begin the portage is coming up soon. If we miss it, the river won’t give us a second chance.”

  Bjorn nodded from the prow.

  “Aeifor is so big, we must haul the ship overland for several miiller,” Ornolf explained. “It roars through a canyon, swirling and boiling, and ends in a fall of some thirty feet.”

  Bjorn leaned out over the Valkyrie’s long neck, making hand signals back to his uncle when he saw a shallow place to be avoided. “How were the Pechenegs behaving when you came through last?” he called back to Ornolf.

  “Not as cordial as we might wish,” his uncle replied.

  Bjorn turned to Rika. “We must be wary. The Pechenegs are poor fighters in a clinch, but they’re demons with a bow.”

  Rika nodded mutely as guilt hammered her. Yet another danger her choice forced upon them. “But don’t you trade with the Pechenegs?” she asked Ornolf. “Won’t they provide a wagon like the tribe who helped us for the portage to Kiev?”

  “The tribes here are not so agreeable. There’ll be no wagon this time,” he said. “We’ll fell some saplings and push the Valkyrie overland on a movable skid road of pine. It takes longer than a wagon, but we’ll manage it.”

  “Isn’t that the start of the portage?” Bjorn pointed toward a slight opening in the thick forest in the shade of a broad hawthorn.

  “Ja,” Ornolf said. “You’ve got sharp eyes. It’s been ten winters at least since you made this trip with me. I’m glad you still remember the landmarks.”

  Ornolf turned the Valkyrie’s head toward the bank and beached her.

  “Stay close to me while we’re on the march,” Bjorn said to Rika as he helped her out of the boat.

  She nodded mutely.

  Ornolf kept watch for hostile tribesmen while Bjorn and Jorand pulled out their axes. They started felling trees to be cut into lengths to skid the hull of the boat across for the portage. Torvald and Helge busied themselves with setting up a temporary camp while preparations for the overland trek were made. Since Rika’s scathing rejection, Torvald had not attempted to draw her out in conversation or trouble her in any way. She sometimes felt he was watching her, but she never caught him at it directly.

  Rika wandered a short distance downriver, near where Bjorn hacked rhythmically into a ramrod straight pine. She’d heard so much about this fierce cataract, she had to see it. Her first glance at Aeifor snatched her breath away.

  The pounding water grinding away at rock roared in her ears. Mist rose around her like dragon’s breath. It coated her with dizzying spray and pebbled her skin with cold. The white water plunged downward into a seething cauldron the entire width of the river. The cataract seemed to go on forever, its fury not abated as it rounded a bend. Ornolf had told her that the river disappeared into a stretch where the banks rose on each side to form a narrow canyon.

  The restless energy tugged at her and Rika leaned closer to the edge. Thousands of kegs of water poured into the barrage in a never-ending dance of frenetic insanity.

  She remembered the standing rune stone she and Bjorn had read at the mouth of the Dvina and spared a moment to think of the lost brother memorialized there. ‘Roald went far into Aeifor and so gave food to the eagles.’ To go far into Aeifor would be a journey to the next world, indeed.

  The hypnotic pull of water drew her closer. Individual droplets leaped over the rocks always different, but always in the same pattern. She began to notice hollow indentations in the granite, where the river had pummeled the stone into grudging submission.

  Not even stone lasted forever. Eventually, the rocky bones of the Middle Earth would wear out and be destroyed in fire. Nothing was eternal, neither her world nor her gods. The realization made her feel suddenly very sad and very small.

  The short span of seasons allotted to her and the problems of her life were both fleeting. Her hopeless feelings for Bjorn, her sacrifice for her brother’s life, a thousand winters from now, none of it would matter. All she had was this one life, this one moment. What was she doing with it?

  She turned her back on Aeifor to look at Bjorn. He’d stripped to the waist the better to free his arms to swing the heavy double-bladed ax. His hair was bound back out of his eyes. A look of dogged concentration was etched on his rugged face and she knew in that moment that she loved him. Loved him with every fiber of her being, with every breath in her body, with every drop of blood coursing through her veins.

  And she knew just as certainly if she died without letting this man love her, she might as well die right now.

  Maybe it didn’t matter that tomorrow or next week or next month they’d reach the end of this journey and be parted. A Pecheneg arrow could find either of them at any moment. Life was nothing but a series of goodbyes. No one was promised tomorrow. But they did have now.

  Even though Bjorn was a hunter, he still had the same instinct that tells a wild stag there are eyes on him. He stopped the ax in mid-swing and swiveled around to find the intent gaze that had sent a tingle to the base of his skull. He expected a Pecheneg warrior looking down a long arrow at him, but found Rika instead.

  Something about her softly parted mouth was different. Her eyes were warm and hazy, the deep color of tall summer grass, instead of their usual icy green. He saw her lips move. He couldn’t hear her over the riot of Aeifor, but he could tell from the shape of her mouth that she’d said his name.

  “Rika?” he said uncertainly.

  She took a step toward him, but made it no farther. Not only stones were chiseled by the force of the water. The soft bank beneath her feet had been eroded by the constant hammering and all it took to send it plummeting downstream was the slight addition of her weight.

  Her eyes and mouth flew open wide as she disappeared into the mists of Aeifor without a sound.

  Chapter 24

  “Rika!” Bjorn bellowed her name and dropped the ax.

  Ornolf turned his head in time to see his nephew race to the edge of the cataract and leap in. Arms windmilling, Bjorn dropped out of sight. Ornolf didn’t see the skald anywhere and his heart sank.

  He and Torvald chugged to the crumbling spot on the bank just as two bobbing heads, one flame-red and one dark, disappeared around the bend in the river.

  “What can we do?” Torvald demanded frantically.

  “Nothing.” Ornolf’s voice was flat. He loved Bjorn like a son and he’d mourn him as one. “They’re gone. If we’re lucky, at the end of the portage we’ll recover their bodies, but don’t count on it.”

  He clamped a hand on Torvald’s shoulder and led him away from the pull of the cataract before the old man followed his lost daughter into the water out of grief. Without Bjorn, Ornolf needed Torvald more than ever. Even without a bride to deliver, the Jarl of Sogna still had a load of trade goods for Farouk-Azziz that would not wait.

  * * *

  Bjorn was drowning. And this time not in some night phantom, but for a certainty.

  The water closed over his head and he writhed against the force that dragged him down. His lungs ached. When his feet touched bottom, he propelled himself upward with a thrust. His head breeched the surface long enough for him to grab a breath and see Rika fighting the water three arm-lengths away.

  It might as well be three miiller. He had no way to reach her.

  The water grasped him and wrestled him down again, dragging him across the rounded stones on the bottom. In the flash of a moment, he looked up through the clear liquid to see shimmering spokes of sunlight through overhanging tree bo
ughs. Then his back was dashed suddenly against a boulder and with the thud of the impact, all the air expelled from his lungs. Bjorn struggled against the urge to inhale, his depleted lungs screaming at him.

  Arms flailing, he clawed his way upward to the world of light and sound. He broke through the frothing surface and dragged in a lungful of oxygen. Air had never tasted so sweet. Why had he never appreciated the simple miracle of breathing?

  Rika was closer now, wide-eyed and gasping. Bjorn thrust out his arm, straining toward her. Their fingertips grazed each other, but couldn’t latch. A swirling current spun her away from him as an undertow grabbed his ankles and yanked him down again.

  The force of the water assured that there were no jagged surfaces to rip at him. The rocks in Aeifor were polished smooth, but that didn’t detract from their hardness. No fist in all his fighting life had ever pummeled him like the stones of the Dnieper. His flesh gave way, a blow to the shoulder here, a punch to his kidneys there, a glancing shot to his head that made his vision tunnel for a heartbeat or two. He had to get away before the river pounded him into raw meat.

  He surfaced in time to see a boulder looming toward him, and he twisted in the water to meet it with his back. He braced himself for the impact. The rock knocked him across the current and into something soft. It took him a moment to realize that it was Rika. He wrapped both arms around her and held on as they disappeared beneath the water again.

  She was limp and boneless. Her head lolled back onto his shoulder. With one arm, he pawed the water, clambering back to the surface.

  The banks of the Dnieper rose menacingly on both sides and though there were fewer half-submerged boulders for him to avoid, the water ran swifter and deeper than ever. Even if he somehow worked his way to the side, there was no place to crawl out and no way to withstand the drag of the current as it drove them along.

  The roaring in his ears grew louder. The fall. It was coming and there was no help for it.

  He gripped Rika tighter as they neared the precipice. For a frozen moment, they seemed to hang on the edge and he saw the sky, blue and serene above them. Then down, down they fell in a rush, droplets of water airborne around them, crashing into the deep pool at the bottom, feet first.

  Water swirled around like milk in a churn. They rolled helplessly, caught in the crushing circular wash that hollowed away the riverbed and, over the lifetimes of thousands of men, formed the fall. It was a pitiless force, not to be gainsaid by rock or tree or the strength of so puny a thing as a man.

  Bjorn sank, his sodden clothing and the burden in his arms pulling him down. He recognized the lethargy stealing over him, draining his limbs of strength and his mind of the will to continue the struggle. This was the point in his nightmare where he gave up and let the water take him.

  Let go, a whisper urged. Accept your fate.

  It all felt too hauntingly familiar. It was the last respite before the gaping jaws of Jormungand flashed from the darkness to rend him. But this time he wasn’t alone. Rika was in the path of the monster as well.

  No. If he were bound for Hel, he would go down fighting, not drifting aimlessly in the deep like a piece of flotsam. A rush of determination surged through him. He pushed off the bottom. Bjorn scissored his legs and clawed upward with one arm slicing through the water and the other tight around Rika’s waist.

  When he reached the surface, he dragged air into his lungs with a rasping gasp. He rolled onto his back, pulling Rika’s body on top of his. With her head resting on his chest, he sucked in another lungful of air, the heady draught sending strength back to his arms and legs.

  The current took them again, gently this time, but Rika didn’t stir. Since they were near a small island in midstream Bjorn flailed toward it. His feet found the rocky bottom, and he struggled to stand. Cradling Rika in his arms, he staggered to shore.

  He laid her down on the long grass. Her skin was white, like the fine alabaster he’d seen in Miklagard long ago, and her eyes were open, but she didn’t see. Panting, Bjorn watched her chest, praying for some sign of movement. Nothing.

  “Rika, no!” he shouted. His father had revived a drowned comrade once. What had he done? Bjorn tried to remember. He shook her, then pressed hard against her breastbone.

  “Breathe,” he ordered.

  He covered her mouth with his, willing her to rouse to life. Her chest rose and sank. Then nothing. He filled her lungs with his own breath again, but she was completely still.

  “No, not like this.” His was voice edged with panic. “No, no, no!” With each chanted denial, he pressed down on her chest. “Come, Rika, cheat the water with me.”

  He fitted his mouth to hers again, to force his breath into her. Her lips were warm yet, but Bjorn sensed he was losing the battle with the death-dealing Norns.

  “No!” He balled his hand into a fist and brought it down hard in the middle of her chest. Her body bucked with the force of the blow.

  Then her eyelids fluttered. She closed her eyes and Bjorn could see movement under the thin skin as her eyeballs rolled in their sockets. Rika coughed and made a choking noise. Relief flooding him, Bjorn turned her onto her side and pounded her back as she expelled the water from her lungs.

  “That’s it,” he coaxed. “Get it all out.”

  When she finished, she rolled onto her back, gasping.

  “Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked.

  “I hurt everywhere." She flexed her muscles, showing him that her limbs all still worked.

  Bjorn ran his hands over her arms and legs. Then he slid a hand up under her tunic to run his fingertips over her ribcage, feeling the curved bones beneath her smooth skin.

  “Nothing broken,” he said. “Nothing I can feel, anyway.”

  She placed a shaking hand on his chest. “Bjorn, you can’t swim.”

  One side of his mouth turned up. “I think maybe I can now."

  “You ... you went into Aeifor after me.”

  Bjorn stretched out beside her and leaned on an elbow. He cupped one of her cheeks in his palm. A bruise was already beginning to form on the soft flesh. “I saw my heart going down the river. My body had to follow.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth gaped a little and her chest heaved. “Love me, Bjorn.”

  “I do,” he said, kissing her softly, and then pulling back to brush a strand of hair from her eyes.

  “No, I mean love me. Right now.” She grasped his shoulders with both hands. “I’m begging you.”

  “Rika, the river has pounded you so, I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” he said.

  “I don’t care if it hurts.” She pulled his head down and kissed him hard. “I want to live, Bjorn. I want to feel, pleasure or pain, I don’t care. I want to feel . . . everything.”

  Chapter 25

  Rika pressed her mouth to his neck, tasting his skin, salty and warm. Beneath her lips, she felt his pulse quicken. “Please. Show me how to love you.”

  He gathered her in his arms and she melted into his embrace. His hands slid over her skin, not clinically this time, not looking for broken bones, but languidly, trailing his broad fingers over the charged surface, sending shivers over her. She mirrored his movements, lightly tracing circles across his shoulders and then down his chest. She loved the feel of him, hard and hot under her probing fingers.

  He found her mouth and poured himself into the kiss while his fingers worked the catches on her brooches. She helped slide off her kyrtle and pull her sodden tunic up, grudgingly releasing his mouth for the brief time it took to yank the fabric over her head.

  Warm and strong, his hands molded to her bare breasts, kneading and caressing. A sunburst of sensation flooded through her, heating her blood, and sending it singing through her veins. Low in her belly, a small throbbing began, just the hint of an ache.

  She tugged at his leggings and slid them down his hard thighs. He was ready, but when she touched him, he shuddered and pulled her hand away.

  “Not yet.” His voice was husky as he st
ruggled for control.

  He rolled her down onto the grass. It was cool and soft against her skin, the long blades tickling at her. She raised her arms over her head, as he began an exploration with his mouth, down the side of her neck, grazing her collar bone, and plundering her breasts.

  She arched her back, thrusting the swollen tips toward him. Could he feel her surrender? She was his, totally and completely. Whatever he wanted from her was his to take. If he asked for her soul, she’d rip it out and hand it to him without a qualm.

  But when he raised his head to meet her eyes, Rika could see that Bjorn was not intent on taking. His dark eyes glowed at her, his smile radiated love. From every pore, from every finger-width of his skin, he wanted to give.

  So he did. Waves of pleasure washed over her under the skilled art of his hands and mouth. He found and teased every tender spot, nuzzling her navel, running his tongue over the soft creases of her knees and elbows, exploring the dip of her back. As adroitly as he ever guided his longship through a storm, he led Rika through troughs and peaks of exquisite torment.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked between gasps when his teeth grazed her nipple.

  “Time enough for that later,” he said hoarsely. “This time is for you.” His mouth moved down to the red crescent of curling hair between her legs.

  She writhed under his lips. Moaned his name. Clutched at his shoulders to pull him close. Her world spiraled down to disjointed elements. Hot. Slick. Need.

  When he finally relented and entered her, she felt like a safe harbor, rejoicing as he slid in, welcoming him home at long last.

  He bit his lip, straining to hold back, but she urged him on, and he thrust in, shredding her. Pain exploded in her mind. She didn't care.

  He was hot and hard and strong. The wonder of holding him inside her was too much bliss for her to contain and she cried out at the joy of it.