by T. G. Ayer
As we followed the muddy path, we were stopped short by a shout. We turned to see Fen standing in the field. A mud-splattered Fen, arms on his hips, staring straight at me. And I sighed. I knew what awaited me.
Fen had that look in his eye since yesterday, so I knew I might as well resign myself to sparring. He was probably right that I needed to remain limber and strong, be prepared for anything. It wasn't as if I planned to stick my nose in piles of paperwork until the world ended.
"What's the matter?" asked Joshua, stopping in his tracks, his expression worried.
"It's just Fen," I said with a resigned sigh. "He wants me to come and spar. He's been bugging me for days, so I might as well get it over and done with."
"I thought you enjoyed sparring," Joshua said, a strange expression on his face as he watched me.
"I do. Just lately, I haven't been in the mood."
"Maybe this is just the thing to get those good mood vibes going."
I snorted, then walked along the low stone wall and headed for the nearest gate. "You can carry on with the files if you want. I shouldn't be more than an hour or so," I called over my shoulder.
Joshua waved and continued walking, swinging the little straw basket in his hand as he went. He looked happy and cheerful, and I was glad. He was a one-in-a-million kinda guy.
And he was all mine.
Swinging the gate open, I entered a field containing about eight sparring teams. Any more than that would have put everyone's lives in danger, considering all the warriors practiced with real weapons. And sharp ones at that.
I untied my cloak and threw it over the fence, then headed to Fen. I was grinning when I reached his side, but he was glowering. "What did I do now?" I asked, resigned to being the reason for his foul mood.
"Nothing." He bit out the word so sharply it might as well have been the crack of a whip.
"It's not nothing," I comment calmly, keeping a straight face. "The amount of negative energy you're giving off, we could bottle it and use it as a nuclear weapon." I folded my arms and figured he'd know I wasn't going to move unless I got a straight answer.
He grunted. "I'm just a little impatient with this lot." He waved a hand around, and this time I really looked at the mud-stained warriors around me. None familiar, none einherjar. They were shorter and darker than most of the Asgardians and Midgardians, and I pegged them for dwarfs from Swartelfheim. They all stared back at me, impolite sneers on their faces that made me grit my teeth. "See what I mean?" asked Fen, his voice weary.
"I do. Perhaps they need to be taught a lesson," I suggested, unsheathing my sword in one move. "You and me? Or should I take one of them and make his sorry life flash before his eyes."
"Just you and me. We don't want to frighten our army away," he said with a wry smirk. Seemed he was already looking forward to teaching our audience a lesson or two.
"Maybe they need to have a little fear put into them," I asked, extending my sword as I circled Fen. The sun glinted off the blade, and I tilted it this way and that. "And how about a spine or two?"
He glanced around him and said, "The Valkyrie and I will spar. You lot watch and learn." He faced me and we both heard the sniggers from the gathered dwarfs. I smirked, feeling a little malicious. Fen's smile said he couldn't agree more.
I took the lead, lunged, and swiped my sword wide. Fen thrust his sword forward and blocked, then gave me a hard shove. I had to trot backward to save myself from falling. A chorus of laughter rose around us. I steadied myself, then concentrated on Fen. He came again and this time he struck hard, grunting as he went straight for my gut. I moved toward him, then twisted away from his advancing blade, spun full circle, and slammed the hilt of my sword into his armored back. Metal clinked and I heard a whoosh of breath as it left Fen's lungs.
Around me, the warriors were strangely silent.
Again we circled each other, feet slipping through mud, leather sandals squelching in the muck. I ran forward, sword high, then lunged toward Fen. He knew the sword would be coming down on him, but I'd left my midsection open to a blow. So he went there instead. As he thrust his sword forward, I moved faster and made a half turn to slam my sword into his blade. The sound rent the air as the blades connected, scraping against each other and throwing of a shower of sparks. The tension around us began rise.
But I barely felt it with the blood rushing through my veins. I blinked and tried to focus, but something stronger, more powerful than me seemed to be in control. Maybe adrenalin? I couldn't waste time guessing. Instead, I sucked in a breath and watched Fen lunge and thrust, and I spun out of his way each time so fast I was sure I was just a blur. I wasn't sure what came over me, but on the last parry, my sword slipped a little too close to him.
Fen hissed as my sword slid against his arm as I passed him. A rustling in the crowd confirmed they'd seen the blood spill. Something they were not used to seeing, the blood of the general of the Ulfr army spilled by a mere Valkyrie.
But I was pumped, my blood screaming in my veins, fiery heat flooding taut muscles. My body was in control, my limbs knew more what to do than I did, so I let go, gave in to the pull, and almost drove my sword across Fen's throat. The only thing that stopped it was the flesh of Fen's palm, square on the flat of my blade. I blinked and refocused on Fen's thickly callused, fur-covered limb. I froze as I stared at his face, his forehead high, his nose flatter and nostrils wide, his lips raised to reveal deadly sharp canines.
I gasped for breath, and the feeling began to dissipate, leaving nothing in its place. I felt my knees buckle, and Fen moved deftly toward me. "Don't pass out. Not now. We have them. Look." I listened, steeled myself against fainting, and glanced around me at the watching dwarfs. They stared in morbid fascination at the half-transformed werewolf and the bloodthirsty Valkyrie. "Speak to them now. Or you will lose them."
I wanted to nod, but I held the movement in check as I turned to face the crowd.
I glared at them, drawing an expression of strength and almost arrogance into my bearing. "What you just saw here was nothing. You will see worse in battle." My voice rang out across the field, clear and harsh. I had no intention of being nice. The wind lifted my hair and I found my braid had come undone. Dark red locks now hung to my waist, framing my face, setting off my bright-green eyes. I must look a sight, especially framed as I was by my wings. But I didn't care. "The Jotunn will not hold back. They will hound you until they kill you, and when they have no spears left, no ammunition left, they will merely thrust their fingers of icicles into your flesh as if you are a slab of meat. They have no feelings. They have no fear."
As I spoke I strode before the gathered dwarfs, my bloodstained sword swinging in my hand, catching the light and reflecting on the worried faces that surrounded me. "There will be no time to think. You need to learn how to fight, learn how to make every move automatic so you can thrust without thinking, block without thinking. Kill without thinking. Or else you will die. If you do not want to fight, leave now." My voice carried on the wind and I barely recognized it.
Silence hung over the field.
"What in Hel are you slobs waiting for? Start practicing," yelled Fen, glaring the dwarfs down until they scrambled into pairs. Then he glanced at me, a grin faint at the corner of his wolf lips, before shouting loudly, "Fight or die."
Only when the swords began clashing against each other did I move slowly to the wall closest to me. I was finally able to get off my shivering limbs, and now I truly felt I'd never be able to stand again. My muscles were mush, my bones rubber. I struggled to breathe as I sat and watched the warriors fight, now reinvigorated by a battle that had almost killed Fen.
Ice stilled the blood in my veins as flashes of the fight returned to me, fresh and clear. I'd lost all control. I'd fought and I'd wanted blood. I'd craved death. That was the reason I hadn't held back, the reason I'd fought harder and faster than ever before. The reason Fen now had a cut across his palm instead of being freed of the head on his shoulders. A shudde
r rippled through me.
"Stay calm. It will pass." Fen's voice was soft beside me. Whether to ensure we weren't overheard or whether it was meant to calm me, I didn't know.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, my voice breaking on a soft squeak.
"It is called the Berserker Rage."
"What's that?" I asked, frowning. I'd never heard of such a thing.
"It's when the battle rage becomes almost a living thing, when it takes control of your body and your mind, when the bloodlust consumes you and all you need, all you desire is the kill to satisfy it."
I shook my head, unable to understand what that had to do with me. "But why is that happening to me?"
Fen put a hand on my shoulder and the mere warmth of his now human palm served to calm me down a little. "It happens to many warriors. All the true warriors will feel the grip of the rage at least once in their lives. But only the most powerful, the most fearsome of warriors will sit on the knife's edge the rage presents."
"Knife's edge?" That didn't sound too positive to me.
Fen then said, "The rage will take you over if you let it. It will take control of your mind if you are not strong enough to take back what is yours."
"You mean take back my own mind? Is this some kind of mental sickness?" I asked, my eyes staring but seeing nothing except my blade hitting Fen's palm. Then a sliver of memory returned. The look of shock in Joshua's eyes from a sparring session a long time ago. The rage that had filled me almost to the point of hurting him. I'd been so shocked, so horrified by my actions and feelings that I hadn't asked anyone about it for fear I was going insane. Too many sessions with a psychiatrist would do that to anyone. So I'd stayed silent. "Oh crap."
"What?" Fen had been watching the fighting dwarfs, and now his gaze snapped back to my face, worry darkening his hooded eyes.
"It's happened before," I said softly, a part of me not wanting to say the words aloud, as if doing so would make it all the more real.
"When?"
"A while ago when I was sparring with Joshua. I almost killed him, but I stopped in time." My stomach tightened into an iron ball. I could have killed Joshua.
"Good thing you let him live. Hard to have a relationship with a dead lover," said Fen, and my gaze shifted slowly to his face. My mind had gone straight back to Sigrun, but it seemed Fen was dealing with his grief better than I was. He didn't seem affected at all by what he'd said.
I didn't reply. Instead, I swallowed hard before asking, "What do I do now?"
"Nothing," said Fen simply. "You just learn to control it. You work harder and practice harder and push yourself harder, and when the rage takes over, you learn from it. Because only then can you control it. Only from within can you defeat it."
"What if I fail?" I shivered with fear at the mere thought of feeling that deep, bloodthirsty rage again.
Fen shrugged. "You have a choice. Let the rage control you and then we will have to kill you or confine you to a cell for the rest of your life, your mind addled. Or you can learn to control it. You choose."
I sat silent for a moment, the wet sheen of perspiration on my arms and face slowly drying, unlike my mud-caked legs. "I guess I practice."
"Good choice, Bryn," he said as he pushed to his feet. "At least now you've put the fear of Bryn into this lot." He waved a hand at the dwarfs now fighting fiercely, lunging and parrying and creating a racket with the clanging of swords and the odd cry of pain. But that wasn't what I cared about.
What worried me most was I had almost murdered Fenrir.
CHAPTER SIX
My feet took over from a mind too filled with shock and fear and self-recrimination. I reached my room in a daze, my mud-caked sandals slapping dully on the stone floor. I walked in blindly and sat on the edge of the bed for a while, uncaring that I was covered in wet mud. I had no idea how long I sat there, but the room was cold and eventually, with all the mud that covered me, I began to get itchy. A shiver rippled through me.
With a sigh, I rose and grabbed a fresh dress from inside my garment box. I untied the mud-soaked sandals and threw them on the floor. And then I spent a moment just staring at them. What would Turi think when she saw them thrown there? I couldn't work up even an ounce of care. I pulled off my armor and added it to the pile. The iron shirt barely gleamed with all the muck weighing it down.
Forcing my body to move, I headed out the door and walked mindlessly, blindly to the bathing pools. The sight of the heated waters had always calmed me. And now the gigantic oval pool that covered the base of the small, secluded valley glittered in the afternoon sunlight. I walked the path to the edge of the blue marble pool and stood there for a moment, watching the steam rise from the surface of the clear waters.
I'd come here often with Sigrun, but today I was alone.
I tried not to let that get me down, and as I made my way toward an empty bathing alcove, I found it had gotten much easier. Each bathing area was small for privacy and had its own set of steps that led into the larger pool. The steps were crescent-shaped and at the tip of the curve, where it joined the seat of the neighboring alcove, sat a pair of marble bowls containing soaps and sponges. I slid off my mud-stained dress and glided into the pool, finding a seat low enough on the curved edge that I was submerged to my neck. Sighing, I closed my eyes and leaned against the side of the pool, allowing the heat to penetrate into my flesh. Minutes later, I felt better, my muscles less strained and less tense too.
Slipping off the seat, I swam to the bowl and grabbed a sponge and then a bar of soap. Today it was sandalwood flecked with brown specks that smelled of cinnamon bark. Not to mention little pieces of apricot. Heavenly soap. I breathed in the scent as I lathered and scrubbed, then paid serious attention to my mud-caked hair. I wasn't surprised to see the water run brown as it was drawn from my alcove and down toward the center of the larger pool. The bathing pools were a work of architectural genius.
At last, clean and fresh and a damn sight calmer, I rose from the pool. Grabbing a towel from the stack ready beside the conveniently heated seating area along the back of the alcove, I wiped off before tying my hair in the towel. Within minutes, I was dressed and walking back to the palace, the wet strands of my towel-dried hair trailing down my back and already beginning to curl.
My first stop was my quarters, where I changed from the light silk dress into my leathers and chainmail. I pulled on leather boots and threw my cloak around my shoulders for added warmth.
I headed straight for the war room and was surprised to see Joshua bent over a laptop.
"How the hell is that working here?" I asked, annoyed and amazed all at once.
"It works, just no Wi-Fi," he said with a wink.
"But... electricity? Power?"
"Oh, I got a few extra batteries charged at NY HQ while I was there. It sure helps having spreadsheets at hand to extrapolate this data." He waved a hand at my table. A table you could barely see anymore, seeing as it was plastered with paperwork.
I bit my lip. "Damn. If only I'd thought of it. Would have saved me tons of time."
"Well, we can't expect you to come up with all the ideas." When I snorted, he said, "And this wasn't even my idea."
"Whose idea was it?" I asked, curious.
"Aidan, of course. The guy's a complete geek. So does not match his biker image," he said dryly.
I laughed. "Says the petrol head who looks nothing like a petrol head."
"Okay, I see your point," he said, laughing.
Before I could respond, a sound at the door caught my ear, and I turned to see who'd come to visit. My doorway seemed to have a high traffic flow of late.
And the last person in the world I'd expected to see framed in that doorway was Tyra, the dragon matriarch, mother to the king of all the dragons, Steinn. Today she wore a floor-length dress of dull-gold silk brocade, with a deep-red paisley pattern so finely weaved into the fabric I could only see it when she moved and the light shone a certain way. She looked queenly and very elegant, h
er face as pale as the last time I'd seen her.
She was not alone. Beside her stood a golden-haired young girl a little younger than me, and as I stared, I felt like I'd seen her somewhere before. My perusal was interrupted as Tyra walked toward me and held out her pale hand.
"Hello, my dear Brynhildr. How have you been?" She was smiling, her golden eyes sparkling, and for all her haughty bearing, she seemed genuinely interested in my welfare. I wasn't surprised. My first meeting with this strong, stern woman hadn't been the easiest, as she'd faced me then with cold eyes and an even colder heart. But finding the elixir that saved her granddaughter's life had changed her whole attitude toward me. And now I had a powerful dragon to call if I ever needed the help.
"I've been okay." I was being honest more so because Tyra had always had the ability to see right through me. I was beginning to think I was a bit of an open book when it came to my feelings.
"I know, dear. I am truly sorry. Losing a loved one is never easy. Trust me, I know how that feels." She sighed, then glanced at the girl beside her. "Here, let me introduce you to Siri."
"Siri?" I asked, shocked. I stared at the girl, who, beside her grandmother, did not look in the least bit queenly.
"Yes, she does look different when she is alive, doesn't she? At least she's finally filled out those cheeks and put some meat on those bones." Tyra studied the girl with the possessive adoration of the typical grandmother.
"Grandmother," the girl snapped. "I am right here, you know. I can hear you." She sniffed, clearly annoyed at being spoken about rather than to. I could understand.
"Oh, no need to get your scales in a knot, child. You'll have plenty of time to get to know Bryn." Tyra waved a hand at Siri, whose cheeks reddened. The girl did fall back into silence, though, clearly smart enough to chose her battles. She glanced at me, then rolled her golden eyes, making me choke back my laughter.
"She rolled her eyes, didn't she?" asked Tyra, her expression smug. I smiled, Siri huffed, and Tyra just laughed. "I've always said I have eyes in the back of my head."
