Foresworn

by Rinda Elliott

  I nodded and turned only to stumble in the snow. Arun caught my arm, kept me from falling, then didn’t let go. I didn’t mind. I needed the comfort.

  I kept going over what I knew about Surt, the king of the fire giants. The one with the flaming sword. The one who was going to start the fire that burned up the world. If Nanna and Brigg had seen giants, then that could mean he was here. That he’d probably been the one to set the barn and greenhouses on fire. But how would we have missed a giant setting the fire?

  Or could he be more like a god and inside someone who looked normal? Surt was supposed to kill Freyr, and that scared me to death, but so did what my norn was twisting and writhing about. She was so clearly upset, she was giving me images when I wasn’t even asleep.

  Images of fire. And I knew why.

  Yellowstone National Park sat right over the world’s most deadly volcano. A volcano that could easily wipe out most of the world.

  And all the dark-blooded creatures were headed right for it.

  * * *

  We opted to leave the snowmobile in the clearing because four of us wouldn’t fit. Arun was sure he could find it later even though he said that thicket hadn’t existed before.

  Walking in the slush left from the storm turned out to be the worst thing I’d ever tried to do. Every step in the wet, thick, glopping snow felt like the earth was trying to suck my feet inside. The brutal wind burrowed so fiercely, it crept under and through layers of clothing. And though I’d wrapped my scarf around my face, the cold seemed to have thickened in my lungs until every breath felt like it stabbed fat icicles into my chest.

  I didn’t know if it was exhaustion or what, but the trees seemed to be throwing moving shadows onto the ground. Moving sinuous shadows that didn’t resemble any sort I’d ever seen. A dark foreboding filled me, and even my norn seemed to lock up in my chest as something suddenly felt very, very wrong. Looking up, I squinted at the full moon that threw light on the ground—though we didn’t need it. Not with Brigg.

  But then I remembered what was wrong and jolted to a halt.

  Nanna, Brigg and Arun all stopped with me and followed my gaze.

  “I know,” Nanna said, her voice barely carrying over the arctic blast of wind coming through the valley. “It’s not supposed to look full right now.” She shivered and hefted her backpack higher. “I’m pretty sure that’s a bad, bad sign.”

  “It’s not just the moon,” I said, waving them all closer, so I wouldn’t have to yell. Once the three of them were close enough, I had to swallow twice to dislodge the lump of terror thickening in my throat. And I still had to raise my voice over the wind. “I don’t think we’re alone out here anymore.”

  They froze. Then, one by one, they each looked toward the woods around us. My heart beat so hard and loud, it competed with the roaring wind.

  Slowly, Arun let his backpack slide off his shoulders. Nanna and Brigg did the same. Then they surprised me when they knelt and pulled out weapons. Actual weapons. Brigg held a dagger in each hand and my eyebrows lifted when I glimpsed the silver nunchucks in Nanna’s hands.

  I stepped close to Arun. “I don’t suppose you have a sword in your pack?”

  He shook his head, frowning as he peered into the woods. “I trained on one but didn’t bring it for this trip. I mean, who walks around with a sword on his hip?” He squinted before his eyes went wide.

  I looked that direction and felt the world rumble underneath my feet as the shadows under the trees started to writhe and flow in ways that had nothing at all to do with natural shadows. One in particular sort of rippled as it moved from one tree to another. It had long legs and long arms and long hair that flowed around its shoulders just as it left the cover of the trees.

  “Get ready to be blinded,” Nanna shouted as it seemed as if the forest exploded shadows.

  Brigg, still gripping the two wicked-looking daggers, held out his hands and lowered his face. The light that burst from him made the creatures pouring out of the forest raise their hands to cover their eyes. They halted, some hissing, then slowly crept forward.

  “Gods, look how they move,” I said as I knelt and began digging through the snow, looking for rocks...for anything. I wished we’d brought weapons and couldn’t imagine why we’d thought we wouldn’t need them. But then, never in all my wildest nightmares had I thought to see actual dark elves.

  They were like us in that some were taller than others and their hair came in different shades, but their skin glimmered like polished black marble in the glow of Brigg’s scalding light. He closed his eyes, obviously concentrating, and more light spilled out of him.

  I winced and shielded my own eyes just as my hand grasped something under the snow. I felt two somethings—right next to each other. I’d been looking for a rock or a heavy stick or anything I could fight with. What I pulled out of the snow made my skin crawl with electricity because there was no way this was coincidence.

  “No freaking way,” I muttered, pulling the item’s twin from the snow.

  Arun, mouth open in shock, held out his hand for one of them.

  I gulped and passed it over.

  He gripped the elk antler and held it up to the one I held. It had been a whole set at one time but had been broken in half. Long, gleaming and white, the antlers branched into deadly sharp sections. And they were thick. Frighteningly thick.

  Arun swung his in an arc and I followed the movement, surprised at the ease I felt in the swing. My eyes met Arun’s, and something seemed to snap between us, something strong, unbreakable. “Ready for this?” he asked me.

  And I was. I held nothing more than an antler, but suddenly it felt like I could fight anything. I turned to face the elves. Now that the light had filled the section of woods we were in, I could see six of the dark creatures.

  “If I hadn’t just seen that, I never would have believed it,” Nanna said. “Freyr battles Surt with the antlers of an elk. Just like in the myth.”

  “I don’t think Surt is here yet.” This came from Brigg, and I couldn’t imagine how his mind could even form words with the intensity of the power coming off him.

  “He’s here,” I said over the wind. “Somewhere! Someone set fire to the place you were going. Arun’s home.”

  One of the elves stepped closer, his hand still over his eyes. He spoke, but I didn’t understand the language. All I got out of that deep, gravelly voice was that he sounded like an arrogant jerk. He actually seemed to be smirking at us. All he saw was a bunch of kids.

  “He has no idea we’re about to kick his ass,” muttered Nanna. She wasn’t moving her nunchucks, wasn’t showing off like the people I’d seen use the weapon in movies. She held herself still next to Brigg, staring hard at the elves, though every now and then, her glance slid to the elk antlers.

  I was stunned over finding them, too. Stunned and completely, completely creeped the hell out.

  But then, I no longer had time to feel anything but fear as the elves suddenly flew into motion. They ran fast—almost too fast to see—but it was the way they moved that made me want to run and hide. It was the most fluidly graceful, creepy thing I’d ever witnessed.

  One with shoulder-length fire-engine-red hair appeared in front of Nanna, and she didn’t hesitate with the nunchucks. She started spinning them in one hand so fast, they looked like one long stick. Her speed—I’d never seen anything like it. He threw up his arms to block, but at the last minute, she changed her swing and brought them up between his legs. The thing howled and stumbled back.

  I winced. Guess they were humanoid in all ways.

  Brigg let out a yell that seemed to echo through the forest, and he jumped at two others. In midair, he switched one of the knives into a reverse grip and slashed out. I couldn’t tell the color of the blood that spewed from the elf’s neck. The other managed to do something to h
im with its long clawlike fingers, and this time Brigg’s yell was full of pain. But he lashed out with his knives, slashing back and forth, and the elf that hurt him stepped back, then fell over the one who’d fallen.

  Arun’s hand gripped my arm and he pointed. A couple more elves spilled from the forest. Before I could blink, they were in front of him. He let go of me and, using both hands, swung the antler in a wide arc. The sharp branches faced away from the creature, but the crunch of the antler against his cheekbone made me grimace. Arun grunted and swung the antler again. Blood spilled from the elf’s neck.

  I didn’t see what happened next because another came at me. Before he reached me, he stopped and crouched, then tilted his head to the side. His hair was in a silvery-white braid that nearly touched the ground. He took a crouching, crawling step toward me and the fascination that crossed his pointed features as he looked at me had my gut tightening.

  Gripping the elk antler, I raised it, ready to skewer him on one of the pointy ends, but he yelled something and all movement stopped. Again, faster than I could see, the elves moved. This time when they stopped, they were all in front of me. The one crouching tilted his head again and the bottom of his braid disappeared into the snow. He said something over his shoulder, and some of the others nodded.

  They all stared at me as if I had suddenly sprouted horns.

  Arun stepped next to me, his tall body kind of reassuring. But the way the elves stared at me sent a new sort of alarm burning through my system.

  An argument broke out among them. The language wasn’t at all familiar except for a few recognizable words. Vigridr—the place of the last battle. My blood ran cold.

  “I get Vigridr and Surt, but the rest is gibberish. We need to know what they’re saying.” Arun leaned down. “They seem to know you.”

  “I’ve never seen one of those things in my life.” But a memory sparked. Not something I’d seen. Coral. “Oh gods, I think my sister was telling the truth all along.”

  “Explain,” Brigg said as he stood on my other side. His light had dimmed slightly and he held one hand over his side.

  “When we were kids, one of my sisters had this stream of nightmares, and she kept telling us about this monster who crouched over us at night. He looked very much like the things in front of us.” My heart lurched. “I never believed her. Not really.”

  “They do seem to recognize you.” Nanna held the nunchucks still, her body taut and ready to move any second.

  The argument between the elves escalated and the one crouching suddenly straightened to his full height. Arun wrapped his fingers around my arm. Brigg moved closer. Like the others, the elf in front wore some sort of uniform that had a long skirt, only his was a shiny white like his hair and had a golden symbol on the right over his chest. I had the feeling he was in charge. The rest of them wore black.

  He took a step closer to me, and I hefted the antler up with both hands as his white eyebrows lifted in what looked very much like regret. He let out a piercingly loud cry and tensed.

  Something in me knew he was about to rush me, and I had a split second to realize they had all tensed, then became blurs. Before I even saw him, I felt something sharp pierce my neck.

  I did something I’d never done before. I called out for help.

  “Skuld!”

  She sent a wave of approval through me that would have sent me to my knees, but I was afraid whatever the elf had put in my neck would tear me. I dropped the antler, pulled back from him, turned and grasped the front of Arun’s coat. “Hold on,” I yelled as I concentrated as hard as I could and tried, for once, to make my rune tempus happen.

  It worked. Though it hit and it hit hard. The trees didn’t do the smearing, blending spin—they took off. The world around us became nothing more than a blur of gray and the sound was like nothing I’d heard before. A whirring, like a giant motor swirling all around us.

  Nanna gasped and fell to her knees. Brigg followed.

  Arun, breathing hard and wincing, leaned down until his forehead was on mine. We stared at each other as Nanna screamed.

  The world stopped before her scream did. Arun wavered and I was pretty sure his knees were buckling, so I gripped him tight and smashed a hard, fast kiss on his mouth, hoping to distract him. When I let go, he wasn’t falling. He was just standing there, blinking at me. One corner of his mouth started to lift in a smile that disappeared as he looked at my neck. He pushed my scarf aside and cringed, then shoved past me.

  “Holy crap,” Brigg breathed as he came to his feet.

  I turned to find that Arun had stepped in front of me like he’d planned to get between me and the silver-haired elf who was frozen in place a mere foot of so from where I’d been standing. His clawed fingers were out in what looked like a death swipe. A drop of blood hung suspended below one of those bloody fingers.

  “He was going to rip my throat out.” Nausea slammed into my stomach, and I bent over to catch my breath, gulping air, holding the scarf to my neck, and looking at the swarm of elves all frozen in varying poses as they’d been stopped mid-run or mid-dash or whatever the hell it was they were doing to move that fast.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Brigg said. He had crouched next to me, pushed my hair aside to look up at me. “You okay?”

  I winced. “Can you dial back the brightness?”

  “I’ll try. It’s been bad since my birthday yesterday.” He moved back and straightened up. “How are you doing this?”

  “It’s not me. It’s my norn. She does this.” But inside, she writhed about and I felt the hot sting of her disappointment. “You’re not doing it?” I whispered to her.

  “I think it’s you,” Arun said. “You need to keep pressure on that wound until we can get away from them, okay? I’ve got first aid. You’ll have to write something, though, right? We should move as far away from these creatures as we can. Now.”

  Before I moved, I caught the utter shock on Nanna’s face as she stared at me.

  “It’s just this thing I can do,” I tried to explain. “Time will go back to normal. You carry Nanna inside you—I have a norn and she gives me runes about the future.”

  She shook her head. “You have dual gifts. Your norn didn’t stop the world. My grandmother told me about you. You have two sisters, don’t you?” She came toward me, and the biggest smile stretched across her face. “You’re from here.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “My mother was from Minnesota.”

  “Some of your mother’s people were from there and some here. My grandmother moved me to Washington. We’re all spread out.” She hugged me, whispered in my ear, “But your people are also mine. Arapaho.”

  Stunned, I pulled back to stare at her. “My mother’s family was. You’re right. I don’t understand, though. What do you mean your grandmother told you about me and my sisters?”

  Arun touched my shoulder. “We really should get away before time goes back to normal.”

  “He’s right.” I nodded, my gaze catching again on the elf who’d been frozen closest to me. He still had that look of regret on his face, like he didn’t want to kill me. But his hand out told me the opposite of that expression. “But I want to hear more. As soon as we’re out of here, okay?”

  She nodded.

  We all gathered our backpacks and Arun picked up both antlers, handing one to me.

  The thing would be a pain to run with, but I liked having it. The other three jogged a few feet ahead, then stopped to see why I was hesitating. I stepped close to the silver-haired elf, reached out and shoved him hard enough to knock him to the ground.

  My hand started to tingle, and I rolled my eyes. “You couldn’t wait a few more minutes, Skuld?”

  Her approval over my use of her name again flowed through me and I smiled. That smile grew into a grin I knew would
look pretty rotten if the others could have seen my face just then. So I aimed it at the elf statue at my feet. I knelt on the ground next to him, pulled my scarf down and dipped my finger in the warm blood on my neck.

  Then I drew the runes on his nice white uniform. I had to go back for blood several times. When Arun stood over me, I ignored him.

  “I asked them to wait there.” He squatted down, watched as I traced the lines so they were nice and dark. “I was right. You do have a morbid streak. Not sure why I like that about you.” He grinned. “This guy is going to be pissed when he comes out of this.”

  “Good.” I finished and stared at the runes.

  “Crescendo of souls.” And as I read the words aloud, a faint music came to me on the wind. “I hear it—the music.” I looked at Arun. “Close your eyes. See if you can.”

  He did, turning his head. When he opened his eyes, they glittered wide in the light of the moon. “I hear it, too. It’s beautiful.”

  And it was. Only I wasn’t sure it was music. To me, it sounded like thousands of voices harmonizing in sound. It was a crescendo of souls. Of voices. I had no idea what it meant, but a part of me couldn’t wait to find out.

  “We should hurry,” Arun said.

  I nodded, stared down at the elf, then thought of something Coral had once told me about spells and curses that were done using blood. I stared into his eyes as I lowered my scarf one more time to scoop more blood on my finger. This time, I wrote one rune on his forehead. It was hard to see in the dark, but I knew it was there. “That one is from me,” I whispered. “It’s called Kauno or Kaun. It’s the rune of fire.” I leaned closer. “It’s also the rune of mental anguish. Mixed with my blood, it’s going to tear you to pieces.”

  As I turned and ran with the others, I told myself over and over that I hadn’t seen his mouth curve into a grin during my last words.

  But I had.

  Chapter Seven