by Alane Adams
You can do it, he mouthed.
His message was clear.
She had to stop this.
She closed her eyes and felt Gael sending her his powerful aura. Magic surged in her veins, and she felt so light she wondered if she were floating.
She thought of King Einolach and his needless sacrifice, and she let the fury of it whip the power coiling in her until she felt it ready to explode, and then she unleashed it.
“ENOUGH!”
Her voice was like a boom of thunder. A ring of blinding light rippled over the heads of the battling enemies, incinerating the arrows in the air to ash. Power hummed in Keely like white fire. “No one here is going to die! Not today.”
All eyes turned to her. At least they had stopped fighting each other.
“I saw an Eifalian shoot an arrow at me,” Joran growled.
“The Eifalian king saved your life!” Keely shouted, as power still burned through her veins. “Do you really think he would do that if he wanted you dead? It was Loki. He can shape-shift into anyone he wants to be.”
Joran glared at her, then lifted the horn at his side and gave it two loud blasts. “Find the one that started this!” he shouted.
The frost giants began searching the crowds, but Keely knew Loki was long gone.
Joran whirled on her. “Why would Loki come after my son? The frost giants have no fight with the ancient gods.”
“Loki wanted you to go to war with the Eifalians. To distract you,” Keely said.
“From what?”
“From the real fight,” Reesa said. “The fire giants of the South have been awakened. With the death of Odin, his protection has ended. Loki has convinced Surt to go to war with mankind.”
Joran’s eyes grew cold. “I am not the protector of mankind. Once already I have sent my men to battle on your behalf. What part do we have in this?”
“But you promised you would come if we needed you!” Keely cried. “We can’t fight them alone. They’re too strong. We need your army.”
“The Eldjotnar are our brothers,” he said, striding back and forth. “We have no quarrel with them. We cannot be involved in this.”
“Then I pity you,” Reesa said.
Joran stopped in shock. “Pity? By the gods, why would you pity me? My wife? You can’t be serious.” He laughed, but it sounded hollow.
The queen gave him a long look and then turned her back and walked away, head high.
“Reesa, where are you going?” he called after her haughty figure.
“I must get back to my children and decide what I am going to do next.” She mounted her horse, giving Joran one last searing look before turning it sharply with a swift kick. Her men swiftly followed without a backward glance at their king.
Tears stung Keely’s eyes as she watched the queen ride away. Why was nothing ever easy in Orkney? Shock was setting in, the aftereffect of using that much magic. Gael had almost overloaded her, but at least it had worked.
As Gael was carried away on a stretcher, Joran’s men began loading up their gear on their horses. In minutes, the field would be empty of men, and there would be no evidence a slaughter had been narrowly avoided.
Leyes strode over to her, his robes flowing behind him. “Aren’t you a surprise!” He grasped Keely by the shoulders. “You channeled our energy like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“It was Gael, he helped me,” Keely said.
Leyes tilted his forehead to hers in the way of the Eifalians. “You stopped a great bloodshed. You should be proud.”
He straightened, waving a hand at the port. “Come, there is a small vessel headed for Skara Brae. You and your companion must be on it. We will gather our fleet and join you in three days’ time. Deliver that message to Captain Teren.”
Keely should have been pleased by his words, but, without the Vanir’s support, her mission felt like a failure. Surt was still coming, and they wouldn’t be able to stop his army, not even with the help of every able-bodied Eifalian.
Tiredness crept over her. She could do with a full night’s sleep before dealing with Orkney’s problems. But where was Leo? She hadn’t seen him since the battle had begun. She turned to search for him, determined to give him a piece of her mind for deserting her. Then he was there, hurrying toward her.
She bit back the words at the look on his face. Something was wrong with him. Very wrong. His caramel skin was white with rage, like he alone was to blame for their failed mission.
When she had him alone on the ship she would corner him and find out just what his problem was.
Loki meekly followed that arrogant Eifalian, Leyes, down to the docks, twitching at the unfamiliar form he wore. His fingers itched to toss the man’s pale body into the sea, but he held back. His plan had unraveled, but all was not lost. The fire giants would still tear Orkney to pieces, and, when they finished with Skara Brae, they would move north and do the job the frost giants refused to do.
In the meantime, Angerboda was waiting.
The ship the Eifalian led them to was nothing more than a fishing trawler, a small rickety vessel manned by a sea captain with fewer teeth than a six-month-old baby. Leyes apologized, claiming all the Eifalian warships were tied up preparing for the coming battle.
Leyes gave the ship’s captain a small bag of coins, and the old seaman tugged on his cap. Moments later, they pushed off, and the sailor hauled up the sails to catch the afternoon breeze.
“Why don’t you take a nap,” Loki said to Keely, keeping up his appearance as her little friend. “You look like you could use the rest. I’ll keep watch with the captain.”
“I am bushed,” she said with a yawn. “But when I’m done, we need to talk, okay?”
Loki just smiled, patting her arm until she went below. Then he rubbed his hands and went to find the captain. The decrepit sailor hunched over the wheel. Loki tapped him on the shoulder.
The old man turned around, and Loki lifted him by the scruff of his shirt. “Sorry, mate. No room for two captains.” Before the sailor could call out, Loki tossed him overboard to bob in the sea, a confused look on his face as the ship swiftly moved on.
Dusting his hands off, Loki checked the sails. The ship looked sturdy enough. There was only the matter of the girl. She was extra baggage. His shoulder throbbed from that dratted mistletoe arrow she had fired on him.
He considered going down below and hauling her up to swim with the fishes, but she had been impressive back in the square, channeling all that Eifalian energy. His mind ticked over to an idea brewing. She could be put to good use before he got rid of her.
Loki reached around his neck and pulled out a locket on a thick silver chain. He breathed on it, polishing it with his shirt. Pinching the clasp, he let it pop open. Inside was painted the face of a beautiful woman, hair long and black, skin white as milk, eyes like chips of ice. Angerboda, his beloved wife. Taken from him on that day they’d thrown him into the underworld of lost souls and chained him to the stone.
He spun the wheel to catch the wind. “I’m coming for you, my love,” he promised her image. “I’m coming very soon. And nothing will stop me from reuniting with you and our children.”
Keely woke from a long nap, stretching her arms over her head. It was the first time she had slept soundly in days. Water lapped at the sides of the boat, and the gentle rocking motion let her know they were moving swiftly. With luck, they would be back in Skara Brae by the end of the day tomorrow.
She plucked at her blanket. Would they make it in time? She thought of Sam and what he must be going through. She sent up a silent prayer that he would find Odin and bring him back.
Stumbling out of the bunk, she hauled her boots on and popped the hatch open. Morning sunlight made her blink. She must have slept all night. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. Poor Leo had been left to keep watch alone with the captain.
She frowned as she scanned the open deck. Where was Leo? Not below deck and not above. Just the figure of the captain wrapped in a
blanket huddled over the wheel.
Her frown deepened as she saw they were following the shoreline. They should be on the open sea heading for the southern coast of Garamond, but this green tree line and distant ice-covered peaks reminded her of the coastline of Torf-Einnar.
Something was wrong.
She made her way to the back. “Have you seen Leo?” The words died in her mouth as the captain threw his blanket off to reveal Loki’s evil grinning face.
“You,” she breathed. “How did you get on board?”
He shrugged. “I might have impersonated your little friend.”
Of course. How could she have been so stupid! Leo had been acting so weird because he wasn’t Leo. Keely frantically searched for a weapon, but all she could find was a hooked fishing knife for gutting fish. She snatched it up and held it to Loki’s throat. “Tell me where Leo is, or I’ll take your head off.”
With a jerk of his chin, the knife flew out of her hand into the sea. “Your friend is dead. And you will be shortly if you don’t sit down and be quiet.”
Keely’s knees buckled under her. “Dead?”
No.
No, no, no.
Leo couldn’t be dead. Brave and wonderful Leo. “You can’t mean it?”
“Oh, I mean it. I put the knife in his back myself,” Loki said cheerfully.
Keely began beating on him with her fists. “How could you? You’re as evil as they come. You will never know what it is to have friends or love or be loved.”
“Nonsense,” Loki chortled. “I have a wife and three children that love me as much as the moon loves the stars.” He turned just in time to catch her by the wrist.
“Just kill me and get it over with,” she sobbed at him.
Loki pointed a finger at her. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t shot me with that mistletoe arrow, I would have been out of your hair, so you have no one to blame but yourself.”
The words struck her like a knife. As much as she knew it was his fault, she was also to blame for Leo’s death. “You tricked the Vanir into almost slaughtering the Eifalians. All of Orkney is threatened because you told Surt about Odin’s death. Even now he marches on Skara Brae, and the Vanir were our only hope of defeating him.”
Loki’s eyes burned with triumph. “And what a glorious day that will be when Skara Brae burns.”
“Why are you so full of hate? What did Odin ever do to you?”
He snorted. “Like you would understand.”
“Try me.” She sat down. Maybe talking would help her come to grips with the sadness that swamped her.
He ignored her for several seconds, and then his nose wrinkled. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Start with why you killed Baldur.”
A flash of pain crossed his face so fast she almost missed it. He sneered, “Because he was a pompous god, so full of himself.”
“You’re lying,” she said, using her keen senses to sift through his words. “You didn’t mean to kill him, did you?” she said slowly, testing the words. They felt surprisingly right.
He inhaled sharply. “Everyone says I did.”
Keely nibbled on a fingernail as she thought through what she knew. “Baldur was immune to everything but mistletoe. You knew that, but . . .” A light went off. “You didn’t know it would kill him, did you?”
A muscle in his cheek was ticking furiously, and then Loki exploded at her. “It was mistletoe! What harm could it do? I thought there would be a good laugh and that would be that.”
Keely sat back, stunned. “So it was an accident. You didn’t know. And yet Odin punished you for it.”
“My brother,” he spat out the word like it tasted foul, “sent me away for eternity, and banished my family.”
“You just need to explain what happened. Tell Frigga you’re sorry.”
“I will never apologize! Never, never, never!” he shouted, jumping up and down. “Now get down to the galley and make us some food. If you don’t make yourself useful, maybe I will just toss you overboard, and you can join the captain in swimming back to shore.”
Keely went below with a frown on her face as she puzzled over Loki’s words.
Chapter 19
Are we there yet?” Howie asked for the tenth time that morning. He stood up in his stirrups, stretching his cramped legs. His backside was going to have blisters by the end of the day. It made him miss the bus he used to take to school, even with its hard-backed seats and flying spitballs. At least it didn’t take three days to get anywhere.
Jey sighed. “Are you always this annoying? I told you, when we see the red tip of Ilyawit Peak, we turn to the right. We will see a large black hole in the side of a mountain. That is the entrance to the Caverns of Inizza. They were sealed off for centuries until that witch Catriona called up the Safyre.”
The ever-superior Falcory boy rode bareback atop a brown-and-white pinto horse like he had been born on it.
Howie’s horse was thick around the middle, with one eye cockeyed to the left and a tongue that lolled out of its mouth, but it was the best Jey could steal. Howie had named her Sunny because he was trying to look on the bright side. All they had to do was save Beo, then fly back to Skara Brae on the back of the Safyre Omera, and Captain Teren would forget all about the fact that Howie had abandoned his post.
They had been riding day and night for almost two days, with only a few hours of sleep snatched between midnight and dawn. Lingas dug her claws into his shoulder, reminding him the iolar hadn’t eaten yet today.
Damarius, or Big D, as Howie had taken to calling the animal, trotted just behind Sunny like a dark shadow. Howie was a regular animal whisperer. He had tried shooing the wolf, yelling at him to stay in Skara Brae; he even tried tying him up, only to have the beast snap his tether with one swipe of its jaws.
Finally, pressed for time, Howie had given in, reminding the shaggy animal that if he missed a meal, it was on him, and that he couldn’t eat Howie, or his horse, or whatever it was Shun Kara wolves ate.
Right now, they had bigger problems than a missed meal. Water was in short supply. Their trek across the desert had been hot and tiring. Damarius panted with thirst. Empty skins of water hung off Howie’s horse. He tilted one to his lips, shaking out the last few drops.
They had started with four each. Jey had managed to scrounge up a pair under some rocks in the middle of the desert, but they were down to their last waterskin.
Eager to pass the time and not dwell on his guilt, his thirst, or his sore bum, Howie asked, “How do you know so much about the place if you’ve never been there?”
“My father tells me stories of the past. The old ones told us that when Catriona and her cronies were put into those stones at the Ring of Brogar, the Safyre Omeras went to sleep in hopes that one day Catriona might return to them.”
Howie clucked his tongue. “Sounds like a long nap. Oh, snap, Ilyawit Peak.”
“Stop asking me how long—”
“No, look,” Howie pointed over Jey’s shoulder. “The red-tipped peak.”
Jey’s eyes lit up. “Ilyawit. That’s where Leo and I faced the she-she-kana. He would have been toast if I hadn’t saved him,” he boasted.
Howie snorted. “The way Leo tells it, you almost came out the back end of that thing.”
Jey tossed him a glare, and then he smiled. “When Leo tells the story, the she-she-kana was as big as the moon. Come on, if we ride hard, we can make the entrance to the caverns by dusk.”
He dug his heels in the flanks of his horse, and the animal took off. Howie watched, whistling in admiration as the Falcory boy hung low over the side of the horse, urging it on as he whispered in its ear.
“Come on, girl.” He kicked Sunny in the side. “Giddyap.” Lingas launched herself in the air and took wing. Big D ran ahead, silvery black fur blown back as he raced.
Before they got within spitting distance of the cavern entrance, Howie could feel a chill washing over the desert air. Like they were about to
step into an icebox. The smell coming out of there was like three-day-old roadkill.
Sunny pulled her ears back, tossing him a wild look over her shoulder as if to ask if he was crazy. Even Damarius raised a lip in a snarl, prancing foot to foot as he studied the opening.
Lingas settled on a mesquite branch, fluttering her wings as she skreaked loudly. The message was clear: this was a bad idea.
“Yeah, I got it, guys,” Howie said. “None of you like this place.”
The black hole was big enough to drive a bus through. Tumbled rocks littered the ground, like the Safyre had punched its way through, disintegrating solid rock into rubble. Howie tried not to think about how strong those beasts were.
Jey tied his horse to some scrub. It immediately began chewing on the branches.
Howie slid off his horse, hanging on to the saddle until enough blood flowed back to his legs that he could stand.
“Are we really going in there?” he asked.
Jey was already moving toward the entrance. “My father’s in there.”
Howie tied Sunny to a branch. It would do no good telling Damarius to stay, but Lingas would be in the way.
He slipped a small leather hood over the iolar’s head. “Sorry, Lingas; I can’t be worrying about you in there. You stay here and take a nice nap.” Howie scurried after Jey as Lingas let out a high-pitched complaint.
“So what’s the plan?” Howie asked.
“We rescue my father; then we tame the beast.”
“I know, but what if the big, fire-breathing Safyre doesn’t like us coming in there?”
“Then she will feel my blade in her heart,” Jey said, drawing out the knife strapped to his thigh. The hilt was carved from yellowed bone, and the six-inch blade looked lethal. “This belonged to my father. He gave it to me on my twelfth birthday.” He slashed the air with it. “I will do what I must.”
Howie hopped in front of Jey. “You know, you remind me a lot of Leo. He’s all about brave talk but short on making plans. We’ve both seen a Safyre Omera before. The one Catriona rode was as big as a house.”
