Who is she?
Rurik circled high, his eagle gaze lighting on the tiny, bedraggled figure far below, fighting her way across the bleak landscape. She would not see him, but he watched over her. The dreki loved puzzles, and she was a curiosity wrapped up in a mystery.
Fierce.
His female. Appearing in the heart of the storm to challenge him in his own lair. Of course he could not resist her.
And then there was the mystery of her power. He could remember the taste of it in the air between them, crackling like lightning. It reminded him of something, though he could not bring the thought to mind.
What is she?
For the first time in decades his interest, long dormant, stirred. The male in him had looked and seen a creature of flame and shadow, of mighty power, utterly bedazzling. A treasure beyond any he owned. He wanted her. Therefore he would have her, and together they would burn the world until he tired of her.
Rurik dipped his wings, feeling the lash of the winds. It turned him into a free fall, wind whipping past him with dizzying intensity until he banked at the last moment, sweeping over the moors and alighting on a crag. A shudder swept through him, an electric tingle lighting across his skin.
It had been a long time since he walked as a man. A long time since he had desired it, indeed desired anything. Lightning flickered in the distance and in front of him his shadow quivered, then shrunk, wings disappearing, and his serpentine neck folding in on itself. Rurik fell to his hands and knees, feeling the power of the land roil beneath his touch. Rain stung his skin, a whiplash of sensuous pleasure as he bowed his head and waited for the shock of his transition to fade.
Nude. Glorious. Full of immense power that boiled beneath the heavy muscle of his skin. Rurik lifted his head as water sluiced down over his naked skin and smiled fiercely, his teeth bared.
Time to go hunting.
Chapter 3
The problem with gold was that nobody in her village or the neighboring farms would be able to trade for it, nor was it wise to show too much of it, in case someone decided to see if she had more.
Freyja spent three days debating the problem, then finally harnessed their small Icelandic pony, Hanna, to the cart. Telling her father she intended to buy a new ram in Akureyri—without revealing the precise details of the demise of their previous one—she set out toward the trading town. The cart was stocked full of wool and eiderdown, for trips to the trading town were rare and she was practical enough to take this opportunity to sell what she had stored.
One day to travel, one to trade, and one to get home. He’d be fine. He’d lived in their little house his entire life. He wouldn’t need his eyes to get around, and their distant neighbor had promised to keep an eye on him.
Sunshine washed down over her as she guided Hanna along the marshy plain toward Akureyri. The thin track was barely marked by passing traffic, as the last thaw had obliterated it. Only several kerlingar—small pyramids of stone shaped much like old women—marked the way.
“Easy now,” Freyja murmured, as Hanna crested the rise and Akureyri revealed itself below.
The trading town was nestled in the heart of a fjord, with a natural harbor and warmer waters that kept the bay ice-free. Red houses lined the bay and several Danish merchant ships lingered in the harbor. Sometimes the English came to trade for fish, but it was done under a cover of secrecy, for the Danish held the trade monopoly. One could often see them swaggering about the town, turning their noses up at the natives.
For a woman travelling alone, it wasn’t wise to venture too close to the docks, but Freyja had been born with one mostly green eye, and one brown. Witch-born or elf-cursed, depending on which religion or superstition you believed in. People still crossed themselves when they saw her, and few would dare accost her.
She hoped.
Finding a room and board at a small inn, Freyja hastily brushed Hanna down, the gold in the pouch at her neck seeming to weigh her down. She felt as though eyes lingered on her as she left the stables, though that was ridiculous. Nobody knew what she had on her person.
“Hey now! Be careful with that!” someone bellowed as she hurried to the inn.
A large merchant ship had docked close to shore, and men were hastily trying to rig up some sort of contraption to swing what looked like an enormous crossbow on wheels from the ship deck to the dock.
Freyja tucked her bright red shawl around her shoulders as she sidestepped through the growing crowd. “What is it?” she asked no one in particular.
A young lad in a dark blue seafaring coat with brass buttons up the sides of it glanced at her, his hair covered in a knitted woolen cap. “It’s the dragon hunter, miss. From Norway.”
All about her people were lured out of their homes. Freyja stood on her toes to see. Dragon hunter. Chills of premonition edged down her spine. “The only dreki in these parts is the one beneath Krafla.”
“Aye,” the lad replied. “Some of the local villages have put together a fund for the dragon hunter’s reward. They want no more of this tithe, or this wyrm’s demands. Iceland should have no master anymore.”
It would take more than a group of villagers to pay for the dragon hunter. It had to be Benedikt. He and his father made their fortune mining sulfur, and then buying up as much land as they could. He’d long been vocal about his hatred for the tithe and the demand it placed on the villagers. Not that she thought his desire to rid himself of the wyrm was truly guided by his concern for others. Benedikt’s pride was enough to resent any overlord, no matter how little the wyrm stirred their affairs.
“Where is the dragon hunter?” she asked, stumbling over the words.
The lad pointed. “There!”
Freyja’s breath caught as an enormous man strode into view, yelling harshly at the engineers as the ballista was levered off the ship. It dangled over the gulf between water and wharf, swinging precariously.
He was a tall man, wearing archaic chain mail and a long fur cloak. His hair shone moonlight-silver in the dying light, and even from this distance she could see he was handsome. Around her, several whispered murmurs assured her she was not the only one to believe so.
Freyja couldn’t tear her gaze away as the ballista swung toward the wharf. Unease twisted in her gut as she tucked her hands into the narrow crevices of her elbows. The gold seemed to burn in the pouch around her neck.
“Has he hunted many dreki?” she asked. “I did not believe them so easy to fell.”
“He has ways,” the lad assured her. “They say he’s hunted three of them in Norway.”
Three. A man who knew how to kill them then. Freyja shivered. In hindsight, the wyrm seemed curious more than anything else. With time to think over the incident in the cave, she was swiftly realizing he never meant to kill her.
If he’d wished such a thing, he could have done so immediately.
An odd knot of guilt warmed in her chest. She shouldn’t get involved. After all, what could she do? Warn the beast?
The dragon hunter stepped to the edge of the wharf, lifting his hands for silence. “My name,” he called in a strong accent, “is Haakon Haraldsson. I am here to rid you of the foul beast that lurks beneath Krafla.”
Clapping sprang up, women cheering for him and waving handkerchiefs. One would think him a feudal king for the way he carried himself.
A slight smile curled over Haakon’s mouth, though his eyes remained as cold as the glaciers further south. The precise same color too, she noted, as his gaze locked on her. “My team have destroyed three of the foul beasts, and sent them back to the hell they came from.” At this he crossed himself, and half the crowd echoed him. “They tell me Iceland is burdened by such creatures. And I say, no more!” He roared the last words.
Excitement ran through the crowd, trailing over her skin. Freyja was the only one not clapping, and he saw it, his eyes meeting hers with a challenge.
“I hear many words,” another voice called out in a low baritone. “But I do not he
ar how you will perform this”—the voice dropped to a mocking drawl—“miraculous feat.”
All eyes swung toward the back of the crowd. Gasps rang out as people stepped aside to reveal another man, sunlight gleaming off the golden thread of his embroidered waistcoat.
He did not move, gaze locked on the dragon slayers, and his arms crossed over his firm chest. Both men were of a height, though the newcomer’s shoulders were broader, and he held himself as though he were the tallest man in the crowd.
He was the sun to Haakon’s moonlit coloring. Silky golden hair raked back from his brow, his watchful eyes the color of amber. Someone long ago had broken his nose, and the imperfection only heightened the severely handsome cut of his features. He was breathtaking. The kind of man she’d pictured as the prince of all the stories her mother told her, though the predatory nature of his gaze told her he might not be quite as noble as she anticipated.
Definitely a stranger. Powerful and at ease with himself, as though he knew his worth. Freyja couldn’t stop her gaze from dropping to those muscular thighs, encased in superfine buff breeches. His coat was dark bronze wool, and a spill of snowy white lace at his throat highlighted the golden hue of his skin. She’d never seen the like in her life.
“And who are you?” Haakon called.
“You may refer to me as Rurik,” the stranger replied, with a slight accent. His voice was smooth, yet everybody strained to hear it. “And I study myths. Including this dreki you speak of killing.”
“A scholar.” The way Haakon pronounced the word spoke volumes. He smiled. “Perhaps you should leave the talk of killing dragons to those better suited for it.”
Laughter spilled around them.
“Knowledge is its own weapon,” Rurik countered, an amused gleam warming his eyes. There was a challenge there.
Haakon turned and gestured toward the ballista. “This shoots solid steel bolts at a hundred yards a second. It’s strong enough to pierce even a dragon’s hide.”
“He must stay very still for you then.”
Haakon tilted his head slightly to the side. “There are ways,” he said, with a chilling little smile.
"And the chainmail? Do you think yourself a knight of old?"
Haakon trailed his knuckles over the smooth rings. "This saved my life three months ago. A dragon has sharp teeth. This stops them."
A whip crack of sound drew everyone’s attention, including Haakon’s. Freyja’s gaze jerked to the far rope holding the heavy machine in place. As she watched, one strand of the hemp unraveled with devastating swiftness. The other held for a second before the pressure snapped it in half too.
“Secure that bloody thing!” Haakon roared as the ballista tumbled onto its side, dangling by two precarious ropes.
Another broke, and the ballista jerked closer to the water below before the final rope lost its fight, and snapped with a mighty crack.
“No!” Haakon raced forward as the ballista tumbled into the water below with a chilly splash. It sank without further aplomb and he cursed at the engineers who had rigged the harness, barking orders in a brutally authoritative tone.
“A pity,” a voice, darkly amused, murmured by her ear. “Now he shall find it most difficult to hunt dreki.”
The words whispered over the smooth skin behind her ear. Freyja shivered, and spun on her heel to face the man. Rurik stood closer than he ought to, his body cutting the cool slipstream of the wind so she instantly warmed. Or perhaps that was the heat that lingered in the air between them.
She hadn’t even heard him moving. Tugging her shawl tight around her shoulders, Freyja glanced up at him as if daring him to stare at her eyes.
And he did.
But not the way most men usually did, recoiling in horror. Instead he leaned closer, seeming to stare right through her as if he could see something no one else could. As if somehow he stripped her naked—not of her clothes, but of every pretense and inhibition she’d ever owned, every lie she’d ever told, every little smile she’d used to mask her hurt.
And it burned. The connection between them was irrevocable. Freyja was lost, unable to look away, drawn like a lodestone to iron filings, lured by the smoky amber of his gaze. Her breath trapped itself in her lungs, as though she wore a steel corset.
“You have beautiful eyes,” he finally murmured, and the spell was broken.
“Beautif—” she blurted, then stopped herself. Nobody had ever called them beautiful before, and this conversation was incredibly daring for a man who had not even asked her name.
Small lines creased in the corners of his eyes, as though he smiled without moving his lips. “You doubt me? Do you not own a mirror?”
“This is most unseemly,” she murmured, dropping her head so as to draw as little attention as possible.
“I did not take you for a seemly woman at all.”
Freyja looked up with a steely glare. “Sir, you have spoken out of turn. I will thank you to move out of my way.”
Those amber eyes sharpened, as though he had unearthed precisely what he wished to find. “My apologies. I did not mean to offend. I merely meant to point out you are a rare blossom in a garden of”—his gaze raked the crowd—“ordinary blooms. You’re not the type to conform. I find the effect stimulating.”
And then he hit her with the full power of his smile.
Freyja stepped back, tucking her shawl tighter as though it could somehow protect her or help sort her whirlpool of sudden emotion. “You offer compliments with a practiced ease.”
“I speak the truth and always have.” He offered her his hand as if to bring her fingers to his lips. “My name is Rurik.”
“So I believe you said.” His fingers were long and elegant. She eyed them as one would eye a toad. She didn’t want to touch him. Instinct had never let her down in the past and it was screaming at her now. Touch him and she would be lost. Touch him and all manner of dangerous, life-changing moments existed in her future. “And if honeyed words are the only weapons in your arsenal, then I fear you shall have a fruitless hunt.”
“Are you challenging me to prove my intentions?”
“All I am saying,” she stared at him defiantly, “is that I will not succumb to flattery.”
His eyelashes lowered as he realized she had no intention of taking his hand. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“I never offered it,” she replied, and gathering her skirts, moved to step around him. “Good day, sir.”
Freyja could feel eyes on her as she hurried toward the inn. Watching her. Smoldering. And then she realized Rurik wasn’t the only person watching her.
The dragon slayer glared at her, his arms folded across his chest and his face expressionless. Behind him, his men dove into the waters of the bay, to attach cables to the ballista, but he paid them no mind. No, his attention was all for her.
Freyja faltered. Her ears began catching hints of the murmurs that surrounded her. The flickering glances of the crowd.
“…curious how it fell like that? All at once, as if the ropes were cut….”
“Cut by what?”
Silence greeted the question. Nobody quite looked at her, but she saw an older lady cross herself.
Somehow Freyja forced herself to take another step. Then another. Moving stiffly, though she tried not to. Her pulse started to race. They did not burn witches anymore, but she was suddenly aware of her vulnerability so far from home. There were none here to protect her or protest her innocence. No one who knew her.
It was not so bad out in the countryside where the goodwives told their tales, and everyone knew it was wise not to disturb the tors for fear of earning the wrath of trolls. Changeling, the local bonders whispered behind her back, but they did little more than whisper. Here in the town, religion had a stronger hold.
Freyja tried to ignore the dragon slayer’s stare as she reached the inn door. The crowd was not where the danger lay.
“Here.”
Rurik frowned down at her,
offering his arm. He too understood the whispering vibe of the crowd. Somehow he looked different, as if the lazy, handsome wastrel had washed from his countenance, to be replaced by something infinitely feral. Meaner. His cheekbones seemed harshly cut, and his eyes glittered like a smoldering furnace. He placed his body between her and the crowd; cutting off the dagger-glance the dragon slayer gave her.
She shouldn’t trust him.
“Take my arm,” he said. “Dine with me.”
Freyja slid her hand through the crook of his arm, swallowing hard. The press of his body against hers filled her with heat and an odd longing. Dare she trust it? Him?
“I won’t let them hurt you. Come.” He pushed through the inn door, holding it open for her. A slow smile curled over his mouth. “Be brave, my lady. I did not think you the type to retreat from anything.”
Freyja sucked in a breath. He was right. If she could face down the mighty wyrm by herself, then she could certainly handle a crowd of superstitious, narrow-minded gossips.
The thought brought an ill-timed smile to her lips, and Rurik’s gaze sharpened on them. “You are amused?”
“I have an odd sense of what to be frightened of. If you knew what I have faced… and yet I quail at this.” She laughed softly. “Foolishness.”
Rurik guided her through the door with his hand in the small of her back. The low-beamed ceiling was stained with peat smoke and several locals leaned on the bar, smoking their pipes. Mostly men, for women rarely frequented a place like this, only those like herself who were forced to trade for lack of menfolk in their lives.
“People are frightened of what they do not understand,” Rurik murmured, the pressure of his hand warming the small of her back. For a moment she caught a hint of his cologne, and turned her face unconsciously toward his chest to breathe it in. Spicy. Smoky-hot. Delicious.
Their eyes met. Something about his gaze frightened her. Darkly knowledgeable. Patient. As if he knew precisely what sort of reaction she was having, and simply waited for her to succumb.
Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection Page 11
