Lord of Fire and Ice

by Connie Mason

  He wondered if she was angry with him or with Albrikt. Both, if the scowl she shot in each of their directions was any measure.

  “This is my home. My word is second only to the Law, and these are the rules for this holmgang,” she announced in a ringing tone. “This fight is for first blood only.”

  “He struck me,” Albrikt said. “I have a right to a kill.”

  “Not if you still wish me to consider your suit,” Katla said. “Son of Ulf, if you kill Albrikt Gormson, you will be dealt with according to the Law.”

  Even though the penalty for a thrall who killed a freeman was horrific, Brandr was tempted. “Gormson still gets to court you. What do I get if I don’t kill him?”

  “If you prove you can show restraint, you’ll be allowed to go armed hereafter,” Katla said. “Do we have an accord?”

  Gormson growled his consent.

  Brandr nodded. “We have an accord.”

  Finn came loping up, bearing Brandr’s weapons. He handed the baldric to him and stepped back into the ring around the combatants.

  Brandr drew his sword and made a few practice cuts in the air, testing the blade for weight and balance, in case Finn had ill-used it. He ran his thumb along the edge. A bead of red welled up on the pad of his thumb. Brandr gave a satisfied grunt. Then he settled into a fighting stance and bared his teeth at Gormson in a wolfish grin.

  “Now we’re even,” Gormson said, determination glinting in his pale eyes. “Though some might still call this an unfair fight, thrall.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” Brandr nodded in satisfaction as he circled Gormson, looking for an opening in the Stordman’s defenses.

  “You know a woman’s word is worthless once the holmgang begins, don’t you?” Gormson hissed. “If I gut you from balls to breastbone in one stroke, that still counts as first blood, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s how I see it.” Brandr feinted left and then struck from the right.

  Gormson parried the blow with ease. “Now we have an accord.”

  Albrikt was older than Brandr, but he was still a warrior in his fighting prime, with a wealth of experience to aid him. Brandr, however, was blessed with the nimbleness and strength of his younger years and a soul still smarting from Gormson’s insults.

  He’d have borne the insults to himself, but he wouldn’t let his father be slandered. The day Brandr’s father wailed like a little maid hadn’t dawned.

  They exchanged several ringing blows, but when Gormson pulled his dirk from its sheath, arming both hands, Brandr’s chances dimmed significantly.

  Brandr lunged, and Gormson leaped out of the way. But not before his dirk sliced through Brandr’s tunic. Gormson feinted and ran into Brandr’s waiting blade, but he neatly deflected the sharp edge with his own dirk, whirling away unhurt.

  There had been a time when combatants in the holmgang would stand toe-to-toe, whacking away at each other with no finesse at all, trusting brute strength to win the day. Now fighting was more like a macabre dance, full of leaps and quick turns. They both came close to drawing blood, but Brandr only nicked Gormson’s leather breastplate, and Gormson had only shredded more of Brandr’s disreputable tunic.

  Brandr was vaguely aware of the chants of encouragement from the crowd. Einar was taking wagers, shouting out the odds in a loud voice.

  He wanted to glance at Katla, but Gormson launched a fresh assault, and his world spiraled down to the next parry, the next thrust.

  Keep your feet. Don’t stop moving.

  Neither gave quarter nor expected it to be given. Their eyes burned feral. Black berserkr rage stole over them, setting their blood aflame.

  It seemed both were tiring, when Brandr changed tactics and let Gormson get close to him. When Albrikt swiped at him, he used his sword hilt to catch the older man’s blade. With a quick flick of his wrist, he wrenched the sword from Gormson’s hand.

  Brandr buried his fist in Albrikt’s belly, and the dirk dropped from Gormson’s grip. With his opponent doubled over, Brandr swept Gormson’s legs from under him in a swift kick.

  Albrikt landed flat on his back, sucking wind. With a final roar, Brandr brought his blade down suddenly on Gormson’s neck, stopping a hair’s breadth from the older man’s pulsing life vein. Brandr’s chest heaved, and every bit of his blood screamed out at him for stopping short of the actual kill.

  The crowd fell into stunned silence. A thrall had bested a freeman, a landed karl. It would take a moment for their world to right itself.

  “Do you yield?” Brandr asked between gasping breaths.

  “No,” Gormson said between clenched teeth.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to blood you.” Brandr pressed down enough to pink Gormson’s neck with a thin mark. He straightened and looked down at Gormson. “Be sure to thank Katla the Black. She’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

  Chapter 8

  Finn and Einar tried to help Gormson up, but he waved them away angrily. Brandr hoped he’d stomp off and abandon his pursuit of Katla, but he allowed himself to be persuaded to reenter the longhouse.

  Brandr was forced to listen as Katla commended him for his fighting abilities.

  “Not many would relish facing a captain of the Varangian Guard, even if he does wear a thrall collar,” she said. “You fought with honor, son of Gorm.”

  After a few more horns of mead, Albrikt was his blustering self again.

  Brandr was relieved when she made her excuses and retired for the night once the singing and drinking games began. After a few moments, everyone’s attention was riveted on her brother Einar near the central fire. He was trying to drain a horn of mead as long as his arm in one gulp and had failed in his second attempt. He called for the horn to be topped off.

  Brandr used the raucous chanting while the horn was being refilled to cover his exit. As silent as a wraith, he slipped into her chamber.

  The noise of the crowd faded, but Katla evidently wasn’t aware he’d entered. She was humming the same drinking tune the gathering was singing in the next room. He moved farther into the chamber with stealth, not daring to breathe too deeply lest she hear him.

  Katla faced away from him on the far side of her bed. Her starched headdress was propped on one of her trunks, and she’d unbraided her hair. The long tresses glistened in the lamplight, still damp, as if she’d plaited it when it was wet. It cascaded in waves down the length of her spine, the wispy ends teasing her hips.

  Her fingers worked the catch on the brooch above each breast. Once the tabs at her shoulders came free, she stepped out of the stiff brocade overdress. The lighter tunic beneath clung to her form. Brandr clearly discerned all her curves under the thin fabric, and the shadow of her legs through the thin cloth teased him.

  Marriages were ever made with an eye to increased wealth, Brandr knew, but Gormson should happily give up his Stord property for a woman like this. Even if all she brought to the union was herself.

  Then she bent double, grasped the hem, and pulled her tunic off over her head. She moved slowly, as if her mind were otherwise occupied.

  That was fine with him. Desire roared in him, and he was hot and ready in only a few heartbeats. He ached to bury himself in her softness, to feel her velvet heat wrapped around him.

  Unfortunately, she wasted no time slipping on her thin night shift.

  She slid her hands under her heavy hair and gave it a shake, spreading the dark mantle across her shoulders to dry. When she turned to climb into bed, she saw Brandr in the shadows and startled.

  “What are you doing in here?” she whispered furiously.

  “Watching you undress,” he said honestly.

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “But that wasn’t my main purpose.”

  A dark brow arched in suspicion.

 
“You aren’t going to marry that louse-bitten toad, are you?”

  “That is none of your business.” Her frown eased into a sly smile. “Oh, I see. If I wed Albrikt, you’re afraid for your tongue. Don’t worry. If I decide to accept him, I’ll make sure the marriage contract stipulates that you remain my exclusive property.”

  “You’re not seriously considering it.” Brandr barely resisted the urge to grasp her shoulders and give her a shake. “If you are, you should know it’s not you he’s interested in here.”

  “Oh, really? Well, that’s flattering.”

  “You’re too bright a woman to need flattery. Oh, ja, I’m not saying he won’t use you.” The thought of Gormson in her bed made Brandr’s eyes burn. “He’ll rut you every time he takes a notion, but that’s not the main reason he’s considering this match. There’s something else he’s after.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t argue. She sank down on the bed, tucking one foot under her.

  “What do you think that might be?”

  So she’d felt it too, the sense of strategic measurement in Gormson’s gaze, not just when he looked at her, but also when he surveyed the long hall. When he silently counted the number of sword arms ringing the fire.

  Brandr knew Albrikt did it, because he’d done it himself.

  “He’s no farmer,” Brandr said, “else he’d not trade for a smaller steading.”

  “Even if I came with it?”

  Was she angling for a compliment from him? Wasn’t his cock tenting his tunic every time he looked her way enough?

  Or maybe she simply wanted another stick to bash him with. She’d have it if he admitted she was a powerful inducement to an otherwise uneven trade.

  “Even if you came with it,” he said firmly. She winced at the slight. “There’s something else that draws him to your property.”

  “I sensed the same,” she said thoughtfully. Then she looked up at him sharply. “But how would you know that?”

  It wasn’t unusual for a woman to have unwarranted knowledge of the hearts of others, but that was because they were naturally endowed with a measure of magic from the cradle. Everyone knew that.

  Men typically shied away from dabbling in seid craft. There was a saying in the North, old as the rocks and trees: If action is needed, turn to a man. For understanding, seek a woman.

  But Brandr had always had a knack for discerning the hidden thoughts of others. He read it in the set of their shoulders, the twitch of a muscle under the skin. He could smell out a lie like an elkhound on the hunt. If a game of chance required him to sense the other man’s next play, he won every time.

  “Just trust me on this,” Brandr said, running a hand over his shorn head. “Gormson isn’t the man for you. Stay away from him.”

  “That almost sounds as if you’re trying to give me an order.” She cocked her head at him. “I am your mistress. I seek neither your counsel nor your consent for what I choose to do.”

  “But you asked—”

  “Enough.” She stood to give more weight to her words. “Go to sleep, thrall.”

  “As you will,” he said and prepared to bed down across her threshold again.

  “No, not in here. It’s not…seemly. On the other side of the door.”

  Shoulders slumped, he put his hand on the latch.

  “Brandr.”

  His head snapped up. Even though she was sending him away, he liked the sound of his name on her tongue. It was the first time she’d used it.

  “I’m glad you weren’t harmed this night.”

  “Me too.”

  She studied him for a long moment and opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. She waved him away. “See to it no one passes by you during the dark watches.”

  “You think someone will try?”

  She shook her head, her lips curving in a reluctant smile. “No, I suppose you’re right. After that display of swordsmanship, I’m safer with you by my door than if I had a dozen guards.”

  He nodded, suppressing a smile. She wouldn’t have to fight Gormson from her bed so long as Brandr served her. He meant to see she didn’t welcome Albrikt there either. “As you will…”

  He closed the door softly behind him before he finished his thought. “Katla.”

  ***

  Brandr had no trouble falling asleep across Katla’s threshold in the large common room. The steady breathing, even the rhythmic snoring of others, helped him into a state of relaxation so deep he didn’t miss having a proper bed.

  But a stealthy step was all it took to jerk him to alert wakefulness.

  Brandr slitted his eyes and peered into the dark. Someone was moving down the center of the long room toward Katla’s chamber.

  At first he thought it must be Gormson. He struck Brandr as the sort to drive a dagger between a sleeping guard’s ribs, then resort to rape in order to clinch the marriage. But the dark shape wasn’t broad shouldered or tall enough to be the man from Stord.

  Every muscle in Brandr’s body tensed as the form drew nearer. Then when the figure leaned over him, Brandr’s hand shot up and caught him by the throat.

  Brandr was on his feet in a heartbeat and smacking the would-be intruder against the wall.

  “Huff da!” The fellow’s voice squeaked, and Brandr recognized him.

  “What are you doing, Haukon?” he whispered as he released his hold on the boy. “Your sister doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

  “I don’t want to see Katla. I want to see you.”

  Brandr sank down with his back to the door he guarded. “Why?”

  Haukon hunkered beside him. “I want you to teach me something.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve heard tales of the Varangians. You’re the fiercest fighters in the world,” Haukon said. “Teach me to handle a sword.”

  “Why? As long as you and your cowardly brothers have a pot of poison, you can handle your enemies right enough.”

  The boy bristled. “It wasn’t my idea to taint your mead, Ulfson. That was Einar’s doing.”

  “So you and Finn just went along with it?”

  “Mayhap we shouldn’t have, but what’s done is done,” Haukon said. “Now is all we can claim.”

  “Ja, and now you’re stealing the only time I’m like to get for sleep.” Brandr lay back down again and closed his eyes. “Thralls don’t set their own pace, you know. I’m sure your sister has a full day planned for me.”

  “Come, Ulfson,” Haukon urged. “Teach me, and I’ll see you get extra food.”

  Trust a stripling to think of his stomach first.

  “No,” Brandr said.

  “But I’m very quick. Everyone says so. It won’t take long for you to show me what I need to know.”

  “Only five or six years.”

  The boy sighed.

  “But what if a gang of men like those friends of yours turns up again?” Haukon whispered urgently. “I want to be able to defend what’s mine.”

  Haukon’s heart was in the right place, but his request was laughable. “If men like my friends ever make landfall here with mayhem in mind, your best bet is to hide in a hole till they leave.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  Brandr opened his eyes. It was still too dark to make out the lad’s face, but the determination in Haukon’s tone tugged at him. He remembered his father schooling him and his brother in the way of a blade. Ulf was a hard taskmaster, demanding to the point of viciousness, but he saw to it his sons could defend themselves.

  No one had done that for Haukon. Even though the boy would have no hope of success against a blooded warrior, he wouldn’t show an enemy his back. Grudging respect made Brandr sit up.

  “Whether it was your idea or no, you helped put the ir
on collar on my neck,” Brandr said. “Give me one good reason why I should help you.”

  “Because…Katla wouldn’t like it.”

  Brandr snorted. “Good enough.”

  Chapter 9

  “May I reclaim for all time my rightful inheritance, the Iron Crown of kingship.”

  Malvar Bloodaxe leaned a hand on slabbed stonework as he whispered his prayer. The man-made hill rose starkly from the plain, a tribute to the defiant will of its ancient makers and in honor of the gods of the Orkney Islands.

  “May Gormson’s arm be strengthened, and may all my ally’s plans succeed.”

  Power tingled through Malvar’s palm and up his arm. There were places in the world where the primeval forces still thrived, where gods even older than the pantheon of the North yet walked unseen. This remote mound of earth on the largest island in the Orkney chain was one of them.

  “May my prisoner’s tongue be loosened and the path to victory made plain.”

  Malvar closed his eyes, letting the spirits of the place speak to him in half-heard sibilance, whispers from the disembodied souls of woad-painted warriors and fallen heroes. They reached out to him from the tall, waving grass, from the red sandstone bones of the island beneath its thin skin of dirt, from the artfully worked slabs that were used to build this sacred place in the deep past.

  This is our land, they cried. Our water and earth and sky. Our blood sacrifices and feasts. Let not the Carpenter God push us from it.

  Malvar opened his eyes, anger hazing his vision red. Not a handful of winters ago, the self-styled Norwegian king, Olav Tryggvason, had landed on the islands and forced the inhabitants to convert to Christianity at sword point. The Norse deities of the islands, Odin and Thor and that lot, were too weak to help the people resist then.

  But there were Others hovering about the island. Forgotten Ones, whose time was both long past and yet to come. They waited with the patient stillness of a spider for their chance.

  Once the Norse king left, Malvar heard their bloodless voices in the night. Hisses of hate woke him from a sound sleep and drenched him in a cold sweat. Then the more he listened, the more he understood.