Hallad scrunched his eyelids and drew a breath, trying to reason. Why would this woman possess his father’s signet?
The stranger dressed in fluid movements. Her hair fell like icicles around her waist as she fastened on a stark shift. Her stone-worn shift, silver-white hair, milky skin and bottomless eyes made her look more like a swan than a woman.
The stranger pulled on tight, black leather trousers, accentuating the narrowness of her hips. After tying off the top of the trousers, she slipped a lamellar breastplate over her head, fastening it in place. She completed her wardrobe with black leather boots, the soles thicker than any warriors’ in the godhi’s longhouse.
A thought shot through Hallad. He wondered if the stranger was a valkyrie. A goddess. A swan maiden.
The woman bent to pick up her sword, but instead of sheathing her blade she gripped the hilt as if waiting for an attack. Emma sucked air from her lungs, panicked at the stranger’s action. Erik spun around faster than a windstorm upon hearing Emma’s distress, spotting the young woman with her battle sword in hand. He brandished his own blade in response and sprang forward.
"Move back, Emma!" he shouted, blocking the woman’s path toward Emma.
The stranger spun her sword, loosening her grip on the hilt, whirling the steel around until the blade pointed outward.
"Gentle Goddess Freyja!" Emma piled her skirts in her fists to make her way around Erik and over the bramble, jogging toward the stranger.
"Emma! Nei! Do not go near her." Erik lunged forward, but Hallad stayed him with a hand to his shoulder.
"She’s hurt!" Emma hastened toward the young woman. Freeing her skirts, she held her hands cautiously in front of her, murmuring to the stranger. "We won’t harm you."
Erik pitched forward again, but Hallad squeezed his shoulder tighter.
"Wait a moment," urged Hallad.
The uncommon tone of Hallad's voice caught Erik, causing him to pause.
"Will you look at that," Rolf said. "It’s like she’s charming a snake."
All three young men exchanged mystified glances.
"I can’t let her . . ." Erik wrinkled his forehead.
"She will be all right." Hallad reassured him, but wasn’t sure why he thought a stranger with the battle sword, who was possibly a valkyrie, wouldn’t harm his little sister.
Emma drew in closer until she touched the woman on the arm. As she inspected the wound, she recognized the head of the arrow hidden in the stranger’s flesh and turned to accuse her brother.
"You shot her?" Emma said, both shocked and indignant.
Hallad realized a trace of blood clumped on the back of the young woman’s bicep. When he had burst through the bramble she must have already broke off the shaft and turned to meet her attacker, hiding the gash from his view.
"Shooting valkyries!" cried Rolf. "You’ll call forth the gods’ wrath on the entire village!"
"She’s not a valkyrie," Hallad replied, trying to convince himself.
"Nei, godhi’s son. I know many a maiden who ventures the Great Wood at night with a battle sword for company." Rolf raised his brows, challenging Hallad to deny him.
"Hush, Rolf," Hallad responded.
"I do not take orders from the godhi’s son. The day you become the godhi and take the oaths of Odin, perhaps I will change my mind." Rolf stuck his nose in the air and snorted. "Besides, she is a valkyrie."
"Blood brother, there is truth in what he says. Have you ever seen anything like her?" asked Erik.
Hallad recalled the singing—how it had seduced him into the forest. Could she have been the singer? Yet she had not uttered a word since their arrival.
The stranger sat motionless, without as much as a blink, while Emma prodded to remove the point. His little sister cleaned and bandaged the stranger’s wound, ripping pieces of her own linen underskirt to use as a dressing.
Hallad regarded the girls as Rolf and Erik bantered about valkyries and the wrath of the gods. The stranger’s eyes shifted uneasily, and the skin on the back of Hallad’s neck rose. The air grew cooler. Aside from Erik's and Rolf’s chatter, the only audible sound was the lapping of the opaque water on the shore as an unnatural quiet crept over the Great Wood.
The stranger jumped to one side as if she expected a lurk-about to come at her from the shadows. Emma backed up, circling her, cooing reassuring phrases as if she spoke to a wild bird. The young woman didn’t notice. A disturbed look possessed the stranger’s face. Her eyes darted as if she awaited the strike of an enemy.
Hallad raised his hand between Erik and Rolf to get their attention. In the next breath, the young woman gripped her sword, spun it three times, and pushed Emma behind her. Emma fell, the wind knocked from her lungs.
"Emma!" Erik screamed, firming his grip on his broad sword. He sped toward the stranger with a swiftness that defied his shorter physique.
"She is a valkyrie," said Rolf, his feet rooted where he stood.
"Move aside!" yelled Erik as he leapt in front of the young woman—but the stranger ignored him, jabbing her blade into the stale air. She swayed back and forth, cutting in and out, in some odd dance with her blade.
Erik extended his fingers to catch the front of his beloved’s dress, but the stranger seized Emma’s arm, pulling her out of Erik’s grip. She planted Emma on the ground behind her, leaving Erik with only the chain from Emma’s dress in his hand.
Tremors built inside Hallad.
I need to do something.
An inexplicable chill blasted into the clearing at Prophetess Cove, freezing them all in their spots. From nowhere, blackness ripped into the air as if a knife cut open a curtain, and darkness oozed through. The murk spread, crossing ground, its inky tendrils snaking over the dormant land, filling the space between the two women.
The stranger swung her neck around like a great bird, seeking Emma.
The rose-color leached from Emma’s cheeks. Her eyes enlarged as the darkness slithered toward her, crawling up and over her skin. Fear rolled over her face. A single tear escaped her eye to stream downward, rolling over her chin to dissolve into the glacial air.
Erik screamed. He struggled, but remained fixed to the ground.
An unseen force held them entrenched within its bitter grip. Before their eyes, Emma’s body gradually disappeared into the blackness until there was nothing left in her spot but the cool air and the earth beneath.
Chapter 3
The frigid air dissipated. The space where Hallad’s little sister had sprawled held nothing more than the ground’s rough traces, the only hint she had been there at all. Hallad sought the stranger across the distance. Her features steeled against him.
"Emma!" Erik’s face darkened, his voice cracking at her name.
The elder brother fell to his knees, his arms reaching forward into empty air. His fist clutched the key, ripped from Emma’s dress. His distressed look focused on the stranger.
"What have you done with her?"
Erik thrust himself upright, his broadsword still clutched within his fist. With his blade extended, he charged the stranger with all the fury bound in Muspell. Hallad sprinted after him, but even with his longer strides he knew he could not catch Erik before his friend ran the young woman clear through.
The stranger returned Erik’s fire with a stare, her hair draped about her like a blanket of snow. The sharp edge of Erik’s weapon raced toward her chest, yet she didn’t budge. Instead, she dropped her sword. And waited.
A frustrated grunt sounded from Erik as he pulled back on his hilt, stifling his blow; he lodged his blade into the hard earth, releasing the hilt. He snatched the woman’s breastplate with both hands, grappling to retain his grip on Emma's key and the woman at the same time. He pulled her close, kicking her sword away, and shook her.
"Where is Emma? By all the great gods, what in Valhalla have you done with her?"
"Calm yourself, Erik." Hallad reached for Erik’s shoulders. "This is not the way."
Erik whir
led on Hallad, but kept a hand on the woman. The godhi’s son jumped back on his heels to keep his balance.
"You!" Erik exclaimed. "Why do you protect this . . ."
"Valkyrie," Rolf, who hadn’t budged from his position, interjected.
"She’s not a valkyrie." Hallad smoothed his tone, disguising the distress.
"Not a valkyrie? What about shadow-spawn? Sent from the dark god himself? She killed Emma! Murdered her! Your own sister!"
Hallad tensed under the accusation. His father’s words intruded, Keep your head level when chaos abounds.
"We don’t know that."
"Have you gone blind?" Darkness lurked in the angles of Erik’s face.
A need arose to guard the stranger. Hallad couldn’t explain it, couldn’t rationalize why, but the sensation wouldn’t subside. Rule with your head even though your heart calls. His father’s words played inside his mind again, though he didn’t know if the irrational urge belonged to his head or heart.
"The Shadow," Rolf suggested. "She brought the Shadow to abduct Emma. She called the darkness forth with her incantation, or dance, or enchantment. Whatever she did—we all saw her. You can’t deny the facts."
All three young men scrutinized the stranger. Was she a valkyrie? Or shadow spawn sent from Loki himself? She returned their scrutiny with her chin held high.
"She brought the Shadow," Erik repeated. "And she will die by my hand." But he paused, clenching his fist around Emma’s key while tightening his remaining grip on the stranger’s breastplate.
Rolf’s tone fell to a whisper. "Brother, what if she isn’t shadow-spawn? What if she’s a valkyrie, protected by the gods? Then, your crime will be as grave as hers."
"Nei," said Hallad. "I will not allow you to harm her."
"Where is your loyalty? Your sister snatched into the Shadow and you protect her slayer."
"Justice will be served, blood brother, but by a hearing of the Hall, not by your hand." Erik glowered as Hallad continued, "They will decide her guilt after a trial. It is the law."
"They will put her to the inquest and prove her guilt," said Rolf.
An uneasy shiver crawled across Hallad’s skin. Their customs stated if the one in question proved innocent, or in league with the gods, the gods would allow them to swan-shift and disappear. If guilty or shadow-spawn, they would die. The tradition was older than many of the tales exchanged on long winter nights, said to be handed down by the gods to protect man from Loki’s shadow-spawn. Yet Hallad could not recall a time when anyone had survived the inquest.
"Bind her then," said Erik, releasing her. "Tightly."
"We don’t have any rope." Hallad picked up the young woman’s sword and tucked the weapon under his belt, hiding the signet within the folds of his tunic. He marched toward his bow and quiver, where he had dropped them on the ground at the entrance to the cove. The young woman moved with him, shadowing his movements. When Hallad stopped, she stopped. Rolf and Erik exchanged raised brows.
Without another word they gathered their belongings. Hallad glanced back at the cove. The water shone like a sheet of ice in the moonlight, defying any commotion had occurred. Erik and Rolf stopped at the forest’s edge, freeing the torches from the ground. Rolf took the lead, followed by Hallad. The strange woman crowded Hallad’s side while Erik took up the rear.
Their feet crunched over coarse ground. No buds blossomed, leaving the forest’s floor dormant, coated in a knot of deadness. The woman’s footfalls made no sound. She glided like a silent shadow by his side. Hallad couldn’t even detect her breath. Yet without looking, he sensed her next to him.
Warmth surged through him overtaking the emptiness he had felt on the Green, before he had met the stranger, before losing Emma. He bit back the bile forming in his throat.
Emma, I failed you.
Hallad’s part in the night’s events would bring retribution against him, and rightly so. Godhi’s son or not, he had endangered lives by his actions.
A woman’s voice drifted through his thoughts.
As long as we are together.
The words wrapped around him, melting through him, reminding him of the song that had urged him into the Great Wood. Hallad glanced sideways, but the young woman kept her gaze forward, lips pressed tight. Had he just imagined she had spoken?
The woodlands wrapped them in silence as they headed back to the village of Steadsby, with the exception of the clank of Erik’s sword against his scabbard—a warning in case the stranger chose to run.
Chapter 4
"I demand a hearing of the Hall!" said Erik.
"Where is my daughter?" Thyre bit back at him, eyes narrowed, lips twisted.
Hallad's mother teetered on a seat, erected upon a dais, in the center of the longhouse. Her hair was a shade deeper than Emma’s, knotted on her crown; her features were tight from the pull of her bun. A veil draped off the spiral of hair, signifying her station as Mistress of the Hall. The woman possessed none of Emma’s gentleness.
Villagers stopped their merriment to witness the spectacle. The crowd silenced as the two glowered at one another. Finally, Thyre broke from her scrutiny of Erik to observe the young woman standing beside Hallad, as straight and sure as a goddess. Thyre's lips twitched into an uncontrolled grin as she calculated something unknown. The guileful leer caused Hallad’s chest to contract in forewarning.
The godhi, Hallad’s father, inspected the young woman too, but he didn’t smile. Old haunts seized his aging face. Avarr’s lids sagged over his eyes—the same mist-gray color as Emma’s, though paled with age.
Hallad stared at his father. The sleeves of Avarr’s tunic bore embroidery, emblazed with his signet, the Guardian Tree digging its roots into the earth—the same signet Hallad wore on his own tunic—the exact seal adorning the young woman’s sword tucked neatly under Hallad’s mantle.
The old man shifted his gaze to his son. Sadness tugged his features downward.
"The Hall will hear you now." The godhi nodded toward Erik with the dignity of a king, but the muscles in his neck bunched as he spoke. "Speak, boy. The Hall hears all who ask. What is your complaint, who is this girl and where is my daughter?" Hallad’s father raised himself off his seat to his full height as his voice thundered throughout the longhouse, leaving behind any of the sorrow Hallad had detected earlier.
The crowd shifted uncomfortably. Even Hallad flinched at the force of his father. Erik’s face heated at his words.
"Emma is dead by the hand of this creature," proclaimed Erik, waving to indicate the stranger. "Sucked into the Shadow itself."
A gasp ran through the crowd. Thyre shrieked loudly. The godhi’s jaw tightened, turning his attention on Hallad. The dense smoke of the room blurred the battle shields gracing the walls of the longhouse—each, his father had told him, with a story of its own. The smells of roasted boar and abundant mead quashed the air in Hallad’s lungs. Hallad’s chest tightened as if a boulder sat on it.
"Is this true, son?" the godhi asked.
Hallad twitched. The young woman stood stiff as a blade beside him, but Hallad sensed her shudder underneath her skin.
"Nei, it is not."
Erik swung at Hallad, fist connecting with his cheek. Hallad stammered backward, catching his balance, but refused to return the blow. The spectators erupted, hollering for a fight. The godhi raised his hand in the air.
"Enough!"
The crowd fell quiet once more.
"You boy," the old man said pointing at Rolf, "you tell us what has happened."
Erik glared at his little brother, raising his dark brows in warning. Rolf moved forward nervously at first, then flipped his scarlet mantle about him. Hallad recognized the gesture and gritted his teeth.
By the gods, he thinks he’s reciting a lay.
Rolf cleared his throat and launched into a colorful version of the evening’s events. The crowd oohed at every turn of his tale, giving Rolf the incentive to exaggerate. Hallad tried to interrupt, but his father held
him off with a shake of his hand, as engrossed in the telling as the crowd. When Rolf described meeting the stranger, her unclothed state, the mystery of her at the cove, the crowd murmured, "valkyrie" and "swan maiden."
Rolf continued, stating how the godhi’s son had shot the creature. The onlookers roared condemnation. Some prayed aloud for the gods’ pardon and protection. Thyre sobbed as Rolf relayed how the woman’s strange behavior called the Shadow that devoured Emma. Onlookers openly wept. Men cursed, rallying in word as "sent from Loki" and "shadow-spawn" replaced "swan maiden" throughout the smoke-congested longhouse. As the room overflowed with emotion, Rolf bowed his head as if finishing a grand performance.
"What will we do?" asked a man in the crowd.
"Kill her," muttered another.
"What if she’s a valkyrie? The gods would curse us for taking their own."
"The inquest," Rolf suggested.
"The inquest."
It swelled like a wave through the crowd until the godhi hushed them.
"By the law of the Hall, this girl has a right to speak for herself. What do you say?" He searched the young woman longingly, as if willing her to speak on her own behalf.
She stood with her white hair draped around her like sleek wings, her chin level, her bottomless eyes defying the crowd—yet she did not utter a sound.
Thyre flew out of her seat.
"Enough husband! I demand justice. I will not be allowed to give my own daughter a proper pyre. My own flesh and blood will wander the earth forever without the rights said and runes carved at her gravestone."
For once, Erik and Thyre were in agreement, and Erik goaded the crowd to put the woman to the inquest. The godhi raised his hand again, causing a hush to wash over the crowd.
"So shall it be." Avarr spoke slowly, choosing his words with regret. "Prepare for the inquest."
Bonded: Book One of the ShadowLight Saga, an Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 2
