The Berserker Brides Saga

by Lee Savino

  By the time I reached the lower ledge, my body was stiff with cold. I searched a while, wondering if I was in the right spot, far below where Jarl and I had searched for wintergreen. Finally, I stood shivering, staring up at the white face of rock where I was sure I’d stood and thrown the loaves over. The clouds passed over the moon until finally the light broke free, and I could see again.

  At my back, the briars were broken. At my feet, a trail of crumbs. Someone had taken my offerings of bread.

  I pulled a few more loaves out of my pack and placed them on the stone before heading back the way I came.

  4

  If any of the girls noticed I slept late the next morning, they didn’t comment. Juliet also woke late in the day and went about her usual duties with her face weary, full of strain. I whispered to Meadow, who proposed she and I take a group of the youngest girls to Laurel’s home. Juliet agreed with relief.

  At Laurel’s hearth, I gathered more bread, not the sweet biscuits or honeycakes but harder buns good for travel. No one noticed, though I felt a bit guilty. I left some wintergreen for Laurel in exchange.

  On the walk back, the girls chattering like a flock of sparrows. They threw back their hoods and skipped along, glad to be out of the lodge, even with a warrior escort. It was a fine, if cold day. Berserkers walked ahead and behind us. Most of the girls ignored them, but I felt their gaze rest on us.

  My friends and I had come a long way from the abbey, where we were unwanted orphans, to being precious prizes of the Berserkers. The Alphas did their best to protect us, decreeing death for any warrior who ventured to close to an unmated spaewife. Our guards were carefully chosen. We could visit our mated friends—as long as we took an escort, and returned to the lodge on the isolated reaches of the mountain. We were caged birds, treasured by our captors, coddled and kept safe until the day came when we came into the mating heat.

  When that day came, we’d be expected to take a mate. Berserkers were powerful warriors, fearless and strong and able to stand against almost any enemy—except their own battle lust. The magic that gave them supernatural powers destroyed their sanity. Only a spaewife, a woman with her own magical powers, could tame a Berserker.

  No wonder the Berserkers hoarded me and my friends like precious jewels. Over the past century, they’d watched their own friends go mad. We were their only hope of avoiding such a fate.

  Of course, for some warriors, it was too late.

  The howls broke out as we crossed the bridge. My stomach flipped, and my sight blurred.

  “No,” I whispered. “Not here.” I fought the vision as it claimed me, stealing away my reality.

  The corpses advanced as one, a silent army. The monsters ran to meet them, filling the world with howls—

  Suddenly I was falling, falling. I blinked and came back to myself, amid the girls screaming.

  I opened my eyes. My feet were on the edge of the bridge.

  “Fern, don’t move,” Meadow begged. The other girls looked stricken. Violet hid her face.

  I swayed in the wind. The howls rose up below me. Then strong arms closed around me.

  “I got you,” a warrior’s voice, rough in my ear. Jarl. Behind us, Berserkers closed around the rest of the spaewives. Each warrior had his weapon out.

  “Everyone off the bridge,” a warrior ordered. “Into the lodge.”

  The faster Jarl moved, the louder the howls became. They seemed to follow me. For the last few hundred feet, the warrior broke into a run. My stomach tilted.

  Jarl kicked open the lodge door. “Juliet!”

  Juliet appeared, face pale. “What happened?”

  “She had a fit.”

  My friend hurried to clear a spot on the big bed, and Jarl laid me down.

  “Has this ever happened before?” the warrior turned to the former nun.

  I shook my head frantically.

  “No,” Juliet answered for me.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.” Juliet let tartness enter her voice. “It probably was a bit of dizziness brought on by crossing the bridge. We’re not used to such heights.”

  I lay back in relief as Juliet fussed over me. I kept her secret; she would keep mine. “She’ll be all right. You should go help the others. I’ll see to her,” Juliet said.

  “Very well,” Jarl said. His rough voice didn’t reveal his mood but before he stalked away Juliet turned to him and said in a softer tone, “Jarl... thank you.”

  A nod and he was gone.

  A minute later, and the lodge was full of chattering spaewives. Juliet held her tongue, closing the curtain to separate us from the rest of the room and turn curious girls away.

  I sat with my head in my heads, drinking the tea she made me only at her prodding.

  At last, my older friend sat down beside me. “You had a vision, didn’t you? The dreams have followed you into the day.”

  I clenched my jaw. It almost hurt not to speak and tell of what I’d seen.

  If my visions took over, and I could not hold in my words anymore, would the Berserkers consider me cursed and drive me out? Or just kill me?

  “You know you can tell me anything.” Juliet lowered her voice. “I won’t speak of it to another soul.”

  I pressed my lips together. I couldn’t tell her the truth.

  There were some who believed a witch could speak of the future, and make a vision come true. Witches were destroyed for less.

  I spent many nights at the abbey, praying I was not a witch. I felt cursed. If I had any power, i’d make the visions stop. Just to be safe, I’d never speak of them, in case telling them did cause them to become real. If what I saw was Fate, I would not help it along.

  After a time, Juliet sighed and left me in privacy. I heard her telling the other girls to leave me alone.

  I closed my eyes and willed the dreams not to come.

  5

  Then

  One moment, Violet and I were hidden under the table. The next, the table was gone, and we were in our captors’ grasp. The bearded one took Violet, lifting her from my unresisting arms. The light haired one took me. Svein, he was called.

  I stared at his face as he hugged me to his chest and missed the blur of the hallway as my captor carried me away. He leapt from the broken window and landed lightly on the lawn. The one named Dagg strode into the forest with Svein on his heels. The thick canopy swallowed up my view of the abbey’s tower. Just like that, the home I’d known for so many years was gone.

  The moonlight filtered through the leaves, dappling my captor’s face. He moved with absolute confidence through the night, as if he could pierce the very shadows with his glowing eyes. Whenever we ran through a patch of moonlight, his light hair glinted. I couldn’t stop staring at him. It wasn’t that he was handsome—though he was—but he seemed so fey. As if he’d crossed the boundaries between our world and the next and come with his own purpose—a purpose that somehow included me.

  Perhaps I stared because I wondered if it was all a dream.

  But no, this was real. Dagg and Svein ventured into the deep woods, and branches brushed my bare legs. Svein tucked me closer. His heart beat close to my ear. He was human, this warrior with a narrow face and sharp blade of a nose, firm lips half caught between a smile and a serious expression as he ran through the glade.

  “You’re a brave, but quiet one,” he said when he caught me looking at him. “Not going to cry out?”

  I didn’t answer. It was no use. We were kidnapped, taken to who knows where. At least he seemed gentle.

  A light flickered in the distance. Both warriors headed there, threading through the thick bracken before emerging into a circle of other warriors. I jerked upright in Svein’s arms, coming out of my trance. These warriors had planned and executed a raid on my home. My friends were all captives, or worse. What had happened to them?

  My stomach twisted, sick with worry. The other warriors studied me, curiosity written on their rugged faces.
/>   A low rumble in Svein’s chest made me glance at him. The light in his eyes pierced me. “Don’t look at them,” he ordered, and shifted me in his arms, turning me so I’d have to crane my neck to see anyone else. “Keep your eyes on me. I will keep you safe.”

  I tightened my grip on his leather jerkin and said nothing.

  “Svein,” a rough voice greeted my captor. “Where is Dagg?”

  Svein jerked his head towards the forest. A moment later, the dark-bearded warrior joined us, slinking silently from the briars. Violet lay sleeping against his chest.

  He handed her off to another warrior and a tremor ran through me.

  “No harm will come to her,” Svein promised, his voice velvet in my ear. He crouched near the fire but kept me in his arms.

  The bearded warrior joined us, dropping to his haunches close by. With his large beard and thick, dark hair back in a thong, he looked like no other man I’d ever seen. Not to mention his great size and fluid strength. He picked up a stick from the ground and turned it over in his hands thoughtfully, before tossing it onto the fire. All of these warriors larger than an ordinary man. They looked like they could break me in half without trying.

  I shivered, and the bearded warrior frowned at me.

  “Easy now.” His deep voice resonated to my very bones, smooth and caressing. “There’s nothing to fear.”

  I looked down, remembering Svein’s mandate not to look at the other warriors.

  The light-haired warrior cradled me closer. “It’s all right. You can look at Dagg, and me, but no other.”

  I felt the bearded one’s eyes on me.

  “I can carry her next,” he said to Svein.

  “She’s not heavy. Barely any weight to her.”

  I wanted to speak, to ask where my friends were. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched another warrior cradle Violet. He’d wrapped her in a fur pelt of some sort. She slept, oblivious to the warrior’s large hand resting on her head, shielding her face from the fire.

  At last, I had the courage to sit up. Svein let me, though his firm grip told me he wouldn’t let me off his lap. I waited until my heartbeat steadied to look him full in the face. His eyes crinkled, and he cocked his head to the side.

  I licked my lips. “My friends. Sorrel…” My mouth couldn’t draw enough moisture to speak.

  “They’re safe.” Svein’s voice rumbled through me. “My fellow warriors would fall on their swords before treating them ill.”

  My brows knotted together as I tried to understand. Why had these warriors come? What use did they have for a bunch of orphans?

  Svein cupped my chin.

  “So brave…” he murmured. “You’re afraid but you speak anyway.” His thumb stroked my cheek and I flinched away. His touch disturbed me—not because it hurt, but because it felt good. Sensation stirred deep within my body.

  Slowly, reverently, Svein stroked my hair back from my face. In the firelight my hair glowed like coals, dark as pitch with sparks of red fire. My hair often drew attention. Another reason I’d learned to hide.

  “Beautiful,” Svein said and I blinked. “Has no one ever told you that?”

  I jerked my head, once.

  “You are beautiful,” he repeated, and warmth rushed through me like a tide. I stared at him, not knowing what I felt.

  “She is the one,” Dagg half spoke, half growled. He sounded like a wild animal, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid. I met his dark gaze boldly and watched his irises light.

  “Yes,” Svein agreed softly. “She is ours.”

  Warriors stood around the fire, muttering, but the three of us were lost in our own world.

  I opened my mouth to speak again when a harsh wind blew over us, whipping through my hair. Both Dagg and Svein lifted their heads, muscles hardening with readiness.

  The air carried a stench that made me gag.

  The next moment, one of the warriors dashed out the fire.

  “The Corpse King comes. Run!”

  6

  I woke to the howling outside. My legs cramped as if ready to run. I forced myself to relax, muscle by muscle, as I listened to the howls. They were almost familiar, twining in harmony both beautiful and sad.

  A curtain still separated me from the others. On the other side, a girl cried softly. “Why do they howl so? Are they hurt?”

  “A warrior told me they lost their mate,” Juliet answered.

  “A mate would save them, right?” another girl asked.

  “Yes, but they can’t claim one now. They’re minds are gone. They would hurt her.” Juliet said.

  “It’s so sad,” Meadow spoke up.

  “What is?” Juliet asked.

  “I heard some of the warriors saying that the Alphas don’t want the mad wolves so close. If the mad ones don’t leave in a few days, they’ll be driven away.”

  I couldn’t stop my sound of distress. Meadow glanced at me and I raised a cup to my lips to hide my expression.

  “That does seem cruel,” Juliet agreed.

  “It does, but the pack has no choice,” Meadow continued. “The Berserkers protect us.”

  Juliet sniffed.

  “Would you do it, Juliet?” Meadow asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Mate with a Berserker?”

  “I don’t know. I am... was a nun. I made a vow of celibacy.”

  “But what if it would save them?”

  The door opened, and Jarl walked in. His gaze fastened on Juliet, who flushed.

  Juliet cleared her throat and rose. “I best see what meat our guards have brought us tonight.” She hurried to Jarl, who raised a curious brow but followed her back outside.

  “You should not ask such questions, Meadow,” one of the older girls muttered.

  “But I truly want to know,” Meadow protested.

  “Then what about you? Would you mate with a Berserker, if it would save their life?”

  Meadow flushed brighter than Juliet had. “It depends.”

  “On what?” the girl asked sharply.

  “On whether the warriors wanted me or not. Two men who cherish you above all. Can you imagine it?”

  The blonde girl, Rosalind, gave a sharp shake of her head, not quite a negation. Her eyes suddenly sought mine. “Why don’t you ask Fern?”

  “What?” Meadow turned to me. “Why would you know?”

  Fumbling my cup, I gave a weak shrug, and escaped to the back of the lodge.

  7

  Then

  I lost track of how long the warriors carried me through the dark. Dagg and Svein soon separated from the rest of the band, forging ahead as the stinking wind swirled around us. Dagg disappeared for a time and Svein hunkered down to wait. Cold crept in, icy fingers penetrating my thin garments. When Dagg returned, he handed Svein a thick pelt. The narrow-faced warrior wrapped me in the fur before they continued on. Warm again, I pressed my face to the hollow of his throat and slept.

  I opened my eyes in the low light. Shifting a little, I peered out from the pelt into a close, dark space. A cave of some sort. Dagg crouched at the entrance, feeding a small fire. His big body shielded the fragile flame from the wind.

  “Sleep well?” Svein offered me a waterskin, and a bit of dried meat once I wet my throat.

  Dagg came and offered me another pelt, this one larger. He wrapped it about my shoulders and lifted my hair free. “So lovely,” he admired. “Little red.”

  I blinked at him and he lightly tugged an auburn lock. “No more words for us? No matter. We can wait for you to find your voice.”

  We sat in the cave and rested. Outside the mist swirled so thick, I didn’t know if it was night or day.

  “The Corpse King is a mage,” Svein explained to me. “He casts spells to control the weather, to drive us in confusion toward his lair. We’ll hide here and wait it out.”

  “He wants you,” Dagg said, and I believed him, even though it seemed too wild to be true. “He can’t have you. You belong to us, now.”


  For some reason, his claim didn’t make me afraid.

  As time went on, it grew darker. I stared into the mist until I saw shapes moving into the gloom. I tried to jerk out of my trance, but the shadows sharpened, became a giant skeleton extending a bony hand toward me...

  Bolting upright, I screamed.

  A dark shape loomed in front of me, breaking the vision. Dagg.

  Large hands came to either side of my face. Svein’s worried expression came into focus.

  “Lass? What was it, what did you see?”

  I clung to him. The vision was gone. He’d pulled me back somehow.

  “It’s all right. You’re safe now. We won’t let the Corpse King have you.”

  8

  The Corpse King. I came awake, trying to piece together my dreams and memories. The skeleton hand reaching from the mist—it seemed so real.

  It was night. The rest of the lodge lay in slumber. I listened for the lonely howls of the banished warriors. The wind whistled in the eaves, but that was all.

  I dozed, drifting.

  I walked through a castle, a great hall and a long line of women watching me silently. A king waited on a dais far ahead, but every step I took weighed me down. I wore a gown, and a necklace—a simple chain and a milky white stone. My steps grew heavy, the jewel a weight around my neck. By the time I reached the stairs to the dais, I felt like I was pushing through water. The women watched, but none moved to help me. Finally, I looked up and saw the king—and he was made of bones.

  I stumbled back, and the jewel on my breast flared hot. I grabbed it in my hand.

  “Yes,” the ghost women murmured. But the king approached quickly, murder on his monstrous face. The women around me faded.