The Berserker Brides Saga

by Lee Savino

  “Not quite,” I raised a foot as he had taught me, and stamped close to his groin, twisting to break his hold. I dropped to the forest floor and he pulled me back by my foot.

  “Arr,” he growled playfully, “You are quick but not quick enough.” He stopped when he saw my face. “What is it?”

  “What if it doesn’t work? The bonding, breaking the curse, all of it?”

  He sobered quickly. “We plan to tell the Alphas we suspect magic is involved. If they understand that, they may be lenient.”

  Rosalind could have acted under a spell. I could explain her actions without naming her traitor. We just had to break the spell so I could speak.

  “Come on, then,” I motioned. “Let’s train.”

  We wrestled under the mild spring sun. Birds flew over our heads, chattering as if they knew the mock battle below them would not end in bloodshed. Vik taught me how to use my body weight to flip a man on his back. Even though I was small, I was fast, and I could use my opponent’s height and weight against him and get away.

  “Be like a fish,” Vik said. “Even if a fisherman catches you, you can thrash and break his grip to slip away.”

  “You always have me running away.”

  “If you’re faced with a more powerful enemy, yes. Your best weapon is surprise, but after they face you once, you will not surprise them again.” He raised his voice, looking beyond me. “Isn’t that right, brother?”

  “Yes,” Thorsteinn straightened from the tree trunk he’d been leaning against. “Listen to my brother, Sorrel. Heed his words.”

  I rolled my eyes. Not even Thorsteinn’s somber mood could dampen my spirits. I pushed a sweaty strand of hair from my face and accepted the drink Vik offered. It occurred to me that I had never been so happy.

  “Sorrel’s done well. She learns quickly.”

  “Oh?” Thorsteinn studied me.

  I handed the waterskin back to Vik and took a fighting stance. “Come at me.”

  Setting aside his weapons, he did. I anticipated his feint and ducked his first advance, which came stupidly slow. Thorsteinn faced me again, a hint of surprise on his face.

  “She’s fast,” Vik said from the sidelines, grinning.

  “Silence,” Thorsteinn grunted. This time he attacked quickly. I got in a blow to his side as I darted away. He followed and seized me, pulling me to face him. “I’ve seen all your tricks. Got you now.”

  I darted my head forward as Vik taught me and smashed my skull into his face.

  He staggered back

  Vik laughed wildly. “The little warrior becomes the master.”

  I sucked in my breath as Thorsteinn stood with his head tipped back, blood streaming from his nose. “Argh,” he growled to the sky, but when he strode back to me, he was laughing. “Well done, little warrior.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “For learning the lesson too well?” He ruffled my hair. “Next time we go on patrol, we should take you.”

  Go on patrol. All happiness lefts my body. “Did the Alphas give you orders to patrol the far reaches?” I shouldn’t ask. I have no right to.

  “No,” Thorsteinn frowned.

  I gnawed my lip. If they left, who would protect me from the pack? I’d be on my own. I’d be safe for a time in the tree lodge, but after a time it would be best to sneak away. Perhaps off the mountain—

  “Sorrel,” Vik squatted to be at my height, his forehead creasing. “We’re not leaving you.”

  “If the Alphas tell you to, you’ll have no choice.”

  “So eager to be rid of us?” Vik ruffled my hair.

  “I only meant, if you had to go, it would be best if I went too—”

  Thorsteinn cocked his head, scowling. “Are you so eager to leave?”

  I shook my head.

  “Come,” Thorsteinn’s hand clamped onto my arm. He dragged me a few feet before I got my legs working. His face darkened. I offended him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Enough of this play. We have work to do.”

  I wanted to explain that I had no desire to run from them, but we were walking so fast. I trotted gamely beside him, almost stumbling when he stopped abruptly.

  “When we face them, you must remember, I am in charge. You do as I say, immediately. Do you swear?” His grey eyes pierced me, emotions passing over his face like clouds.

  “Yes,” I blurted, still curious.

  “They’re there. Over that ridge.” He made no move to climb the hill, so I stayed where I was. A strange lowing and shuffling sound made me step closer to him.

  The air had a heavy, oppressive weight to it. A scent like an oncoming storm. Even the sun shone dimmer in this place.

  “Where are we?”

  “At the magical boundary the witches set around the mountain,” Vik explained, joining us. His hand ghosted up my back.

  “It is not just our patrols that protect you and the spaewives. The Corpse King has ravaged this island to add to his forces. His power grows every moon.”

  A breeze kicked, scattering dead leaves. I choked on the rotten smell.

  “What is that?”

  “The Corpse King’s forces.”

  “They’re there? Just beyond the hill?” I stared the boulder topped rise with horror. Vik’s arms slid around me, and I pressed close.

  “It’s all right, Sorrel,” Thorsteinn said, his voice gentler. He touched my hair. “They cannot get in.”

  “But how do you leave?”

  “You’ll see.” With one final squeeze, Vik sauntered away. A few steps and he turned. Thorsteinn tossed him something.

  “Come,” he guided me to follow the tattooed warrior. I held my breath as we grew close to the top of the hill. The stench made my eyes water. I crested the hill and gasped.

  The boundary was an invisible line in the brown leaves. On one side, Vik paced, rolling the rune stone between his palm. On the other, an endless line of grey-skinned horrors, dressed in rags. Their rotting faces pressed against the unseen barrier, the bubble of magic that protect the mountain.

  “There’s so many.” I recoiled from the stench, the sight.

  “Yes,” Thorsteinn agreed grimly. “They are the undead. The Corpse King raises them to do his will.” Thorsteinn tugged me back against him and I pressed against him, reassured by his strength.

  Vik danced right up to the boundary, tossing the rune stone like a juggler. The undead forces on the other side howled and slavered, bony fingers scrabbling to reach him. He paced back and forth, his powerful body framed by the undead masses. He tossed the rune stone once, twice, catching it lazily.

  “What is he doing?” I asked Thorsteinn.

  The giant warrior tucked me closer and bid me, “Watch.”

  Vik found a spot in front of the slavering ranks. He cocked his head… and sent the ball streaking towards the barrier. It blazed a path into the draugr and disappeared. A blast, a boom, a wash of great, bone stripping heat. The earth shook.

  Fire flared amid the Corpse King’s ranks, flames licking along the rotted clothing, the grey skin and exposed bones. The undead shrieked, opening their mouths with a banshee’s scream that died in the roar and crackle of the great fire. Smoke billowed up, blowing over us in a wave of foul ash.

  I hid my face against Thorsteinn.

  “Balefire,” Thorsteinn whispered. “Be brave, little warrior,” he murmured.

  “It worked.” Vik bounded back to our side. I gritted my teeth and faced the boundary again. A hole opened up in the ranks of draugr. Skeletal arms thrashed against the blue sky and were quickly overtaken by the fire. I turned away, pretending the crackling sound was very dry branches in a fire.

  “It’s new magic,” Thorsteinn said, and showed me the rune stones.

  Vik took a few more out of his pouch. “Want to try?” He herded me towards the boundary. The hole had filled in, undead snapped their teeth at me. “Pick a spot where they group together.”

  “Vik,” I pressed ag
ainst him.

  “They can’t touch you inside the boundary,” Vik promised. “The rune stones can reach them. You can do it, little warrior. Remember how they chased us? They took you and your friends.”

  “Yes,” I straightened. “Took us straight to the Corpse King.”

  “You want to fight,” Vik set a rune stone in my hand. “Fight.”

  I clutched my weapon, weighing it in my hand. Vik pushed my legs apart, correcting my throwing stance. I shut my eyes and remembered the fight after the abbey, after my leg had broken and Vik and Thorsteinn had first tried to make me their mate. The draugr had poured from all directions, overwhelming us. Berserkers dying. Me and my friends taken, terrified. The stone hall of the Corpse King, stinking like a tomb. I took a deep breath, smelled rot.

  “Now,” Vik ordered, and I threw.

  A blast and he shielded me. I peered out between his tattooed forearms at the smoke and destruction I had wrought. And I laughed.

  “Another. Give me another.”

  The rest of the day, I raced up and down the boundary line. The draugr poured into each opening, their ranks endless as a vast, stinking ocean. At times, Thorsteinn and Vik would wade into the fray, crossing the boundary and sending draugr flying to their doom.

  We fell into a rhythm. I would throw my rune stone, they would follow, roaring, to scythe down any foe that remained standing. When the ranks of draugr replenished and overwhelmed them, they retreated long enough for me to throw again.

  “Will it ever end?” I coughed on some leftover smoke.

  “Tired?” Vik offered me a water skin. His skin was slick with sweat and the fluids of the dying draugr. His chest heaved and he had cuts on his arms from the enemy’s weapons. As I drank, the worst of them healed before my eyes. Vik’s grin was bigger than I’d ever seen.

  “No,” I shoved the container back at him and took out my sling. “Let’s go again!”

  Bit by bit, blast by blast, we cut down the enemy. At last I could tell—when the draugr rushed to replenish their line against the boundary, the ranks had thinned. They didn’t stretch as far as the eye could see.

  “It’s working,” I shouted. “We’re winning!”

  Vik banged on his shield, snarling happily at the enemy. Thorsteinn was calmer, waiting for the blast with his axe and spear outstretched. He fought with no shield. Vik didn’t hide behind his, but sent it crashing through the dead men’s ranks, mowing down several at a time.

  I strode to the boundary edge, pacing fearlessly in front of it. The draugr had learn to recoil from the sight of the rune stone, but when I hid it in the sling, they pressed against the boundary again, slavering as they tried to reach me. I swung my sling, waiting for more to gather in one spot so I could destroy them. We would clear the enemy out of this side of the mountain. And I would’ve helped.

  I sent the ball flying deep into the knot of undead. Balefire blew right in the center of their ranks. I stood firm and faced it, my face singed with the heat but nothing else. Dust and limbs rained down on the draugr as Thorsteinn and Vik swooped in, closing in on either end and hacking down the enemy until they met in the middle and faced out again to pick off any standing undead.

  “Almost done, little warrior,” Vik shouted.

  And then I saw it. High above the fray, in a dark cloud, seething with fog and flashes of lightning, the shape of a tall skeleton. It couldn’t be real. The Corpse King couldn’t be here. But he’d appeared this way before, and each time, it was real enough.

  “No,” I shrieked. Loading my sling, I threw. The rune stone exploded above the warrior’s heads—they dove for cover. But the balefire did not touch the dark figure.

  I stumbled backwards and was swallowed by a patch of mist. And then I was not safe on my side of the boundaries. The draugr’s scent surrounded me. Draugr, everywhere. Grey faces pressing on me, bony fingers dragging me.

  I cried out and kicked backwards, fumbling with a rune stone. It slipped from my fingers—

  “Sorrel, no!” Vik dove and landed before me, catching the fallen rune stone. As soon as he caught it, he sent it streaking into the draugr’s ranks. Another boom and a stinking veil of charred bone covered my face and suffocated me.

  “The Corpse King,” I screamed, and choked. Thorsteinn was shouting something.

  Vik grabbed me and, bent double, racing from the boundary. I kept my head down, burrowing against Vik’s chest to find the leather and fur smell of him instead.

  Finally, we were clear. The sun shone around us, and there was no boundary, no mist, no Corpse King apparition hovering in the air. Just a clear sky and clean air. I sucked in lungfuls, collapsed against Vik.

  He held a cup to my lips, and I drank long, greedy draughts of the cold water. “Are you all right?”

  “Better.” I gasped while he filled another cup.

  “More,” he ordered, and I drank again. He wiped my face with a cool cloth.

  “Forgive me,” I said. “I thought… I thought I saw the Corpse King. There was mist, and it surrounded me. It took me somewhere.”

  “We saw. There was mist, Sorrel, but you were still with us. You ran across the boundary.”

  I shook my head, exhausted. “I was confused. The last time the Corpse King appeared…” Rosalind nearly died.

  “You were captured,” Vik finished for me. He knew about the first time. Not the second.

  “We remember,” Thorsteinn said, his voice taut. “We never would’ve taken you to that place if we knew…”

  “How it would affect me?” I scrubbed my face. “You couldn’t know. I didn’t.”

  “You were taken with your friends,” Vik continued, “but you never wanted to speak of it before.”

  “I didn’t like remembering. I didn’t let myself remember.” It had blurred away like a bad dream.

  “It might help to speak of it,” Thorsteinn said.

  I nodded. So many memories I’d locked up, but it’d done nothing to help me.

  Vik rubbed my back. “Are you ready to tell us what happened?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t share what happened that fateful day with Rosalind, but I could tell them what happened last fall. It was so long ago.

  “We came upon the Berserkers fighting the draugr. You left me in the tree,” my voice wavered. “And ran into the fray.”

  “We thought you’d be safe there,” Vik murmured.

  “I was,” I covered my face with my hands. I had never told them this. “I would’ve been… if I hadn’t left.”

  “What?” Thorsteinn’s growl ripped into me.

  “It was my fault I was taken. I heard my friends screaming… and I couldn’t stay safe while they were taken.”

  Silence. My warriors were angry with me. I might as well tell the rest.

  “I ran to save them. I did not know what I would do. But after the mating bite, I felt stronger. Fast. Powerful.”

  “The bond at work,” Vik muttered.

  “I did not think I could save them, but I had to do what I could. I had my sling. I came upon one draugr and beat it back.” I hadn’t known what I faced. The mist was swirling thick, I only knew I was living a nightmare. “I reached my friends in time for him to appear.” I shuddered. “And then we were someplace else.” I shook my head. I knew what I described was impossible. “I woke up laying in a stone hall. My friends lay around me, asleep. Almost all of them.” One had been awake, her golden head shining in the gloom. Rosalind. “There was a… figure… in the darkness. Tall, taller than any man. Dressed in robes, but so thin.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “He was barely a skeleton. A corpse.”

  “The Corpse King,” Vik growled, and I startled, remembering what I was telling them. “He was speaking to Rosalind. His hands reached out to touch her head and I-I had to do something. I still had my sling.”

  “You attacked the Corpse King?”

  “I d-didn’t mean to,” I stuttered. “I wasn’t thinking. I knew he would hurt her. I just knew. I flung a r
ock at his head. I ran forward and grabbed Rosalind. Suddenly we were outside, back in the forest. All of us. We roused the others and kept moving. You found us again.”

  “You saved them. Your sister orphans.”

  “I just did what I had to do.”

  “Does Rosalind remember this?”

  “I think so. She hates me though.” How else could I explain her coldness, her stinging remarks?

  Thorsteinn and Vik exchanged glances.

  “Sorrel, when… if Rosalind wakes, will her story damn you?”

  I shut my eyes. “Yes,” I whispered. I had used my sling again. I had shot her. “Forgive me. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You shot her for a reason. Just as you shot the Corpse King when you were taken on the journey from the abbey to our mountain.”

  “Yes.” I let my head fall back with a thunk and a hand passed over my brow.

  “Rest now, little warrior. You’re safe here. We will take care of everything.”

  The dream played in my head with the confidence of reality. Rosalind’s bright head glowed against the shadowy figure who loomed over her. Skeletal hands reached down. I swung my sling and let the stone fly. But unlike the first time I shot the Corpse King, the missile did not harm him. It disappeared into the mist, and the menacing figure continued reaching for my friend.

  The moonstone, Rosalind had told me. We must fetch it before he does. If he gets it, all is lost, for it feeds his power. And here she was, faced with the Corpse King, offering up the glowing stone.

  I did not hesitate. Feeding another stone into my sling, I swung hard and fast—and hit my target—Rosalind’s golden head. She dropped to the ground. The shadow of the Corpse King hovered over her, hissing. I raced to claim the moonstone—and ran into a thick mist. The fog swallowed me whole. I could not see my arms in front of my face. My foot hit an obstacle and I stumbled and came face to face with Rosalind’s still features. She lay on the forest floor, blood leaking from her skull. The moonstone was gone. So was the Corpse King.