Foresworn

by Rinda Elliott

  The elves used everything around them to battle. With parkour-like moves that reminded me of Taran, they jumped onto and off giants, trees and any thing or person who got in their way. Only their moves were fluid, sinuous and utterly, utterly creepy.

  And then Brigg made the first wrong move. He slashed at the Achilles tendon of a giant, then was distracted by an elf lunging toward him. He took his eyes off the giant. I screamed and ran toward Brigg only to watch in what felt like slow motion as that giant lifted the still-stunned Brigg into the air and snapped his neck.

  Just like that.

  I fell to my knees, watched as the giant tossed Brigg’s body to the side.

  Nanna screamed and sobbed and jumped onto the giant’s back. He snatched her over his shoulder, then slammed her into the trees. I couldn’t tell if she moved after that. I doubted she could.

  It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. I waited, holding my breath, hoping with everything in me that my new friend would come back out of the forest...knowing that she wouldn’t.

  “I can’t stand this!” I stood, turned and yelled at Hildr, tears streaming down my face as my anger and the shock of sudden blinding grief grew until it felt like a solid thing in my chest. I’d really liked Nanna. Liked her and Brigg both. “Why the hell do we have to wait for the gloaming? You look like a battle warrior—why aren’t you helping?”

  She merely crossed those muscled arms and glared back at me.

  Then, as it darkened even more around me, I realized sunset had arrived and a ripple went through the creatures fighting as one by one, those around Arun came to a stop. I rushed forward and actually tried to push one elf aside to get to Arun, but I moved right through the creature. I realized it was the one called Vrunlin, the one who was supposed to be my father. I shivered but kept going.

  I stopped in front of Arun as his eyes took on an otherworldly glow.

  He leaned over, looking around at the creatures surrounding him as he panted and gulped in air. Blood smeared his cheeks, his clothes, and it had matted some of his beautiful blond curls. He snarled at one of the elves, but before he could move, he cried out in pain and his back bowed until his face pointed toward the sky. In the next instant, Hildr stood with him, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes closed.

  I stepped closer but could do nothing, and the utter feeling of helplessness made me yell through my clenched teeth.

  Then something rustled around my feet. Around everyone’s feet. My eyes flew open wide as vines grew out of the ground and continued to grow and lengthen until they surrounded Arun and Hildr. The pain on Arun’s face made me reach for him. I touched his cheek.

  His eyes flew open and at first I thought he saw me.

  He hadn’t. But he’d felt me because he touched his cheek, then turned toward my body, which still rested behind a wall of fire. It occurred to me that if the fire still burned then Branton still held life somewhere in this mass of fighters and corpses.

  Arun narrowed his eyes, raised his hands and flung them out. The vines snapped out so fast I blinked, then stared in shock as they wrapped around the necks of the elves closest to Arun. They tried to pry them loose without success, and one by one the elves dropped to the ground, writhing as they suffocated. Arun flung out his hand again and a vine thickened until it was bigger around than Tyrone’s thigh. It wrapped a giant’s ankle and tugged. The huge creature took down another giant when he fell.

  The ground shook around us.

  The warriors took advantage and jumped the fallen giants, Taran getting there first with his hammer. Vanir right behind him with something that looked like a club. Raven’s boyfriend swung that club hard into the one of the fallen giants and I winced at the spray of blood.Arun looked over his shoulder, and I knew he could see Hildr. When she smiled, his rage suddenly eased and he shoved past her and ran right through the fire.

  I screamed and followed him, sure I’d find him burning to death next to my corpse, but he’d knelt beside me, put his hands on me, and I only had time to see my horrifying charred bald scalp before Arun’s hands glowed and everything else started to grow dark.

  My ghost knees gave out.

  Hildr caught me as I fell, smiling down into my face. “I’m the one Valkyrie with the power to bring warriors back to life while still on the battlefield. I wasn’t sure it would work with the damage you took,” she said softly. “But your particular warrior has certain skills, and I knew when he gained those skills, he could absorb some of mine—even temporarily.” She grinned. “We’ll see if it worked.”

  My world went black.

  * * *

  One of my sisters was crying, but she seemed like she was miles away. Another yelled and cursed and in some part of my mind, I felt her shaking my body. Or watched her doing it. Everything was fuzzy—the world a sort of fluffy cloud made of pain.

  Pain.

  Oh, it ripped and tore through me like one of Arun’s creepy vines. But pain meant I wasn’t dead.

  “Come on, beautiful. Open your eyes. Give me one of your prickly glares. Give me anything here.” Arun’s voice came through my fog, and I tried to smile at him.

  My lip only twitched.

  “It’s working!” That was Raven’s voice. “Thank you. Thank you so much. But look at your hands! Oh, your poor hands.” She dropped beside me, stroked my hair.

  I wanted to speak, but my face felt numb. Most of my body felt partially numb—the parts that didn’t scream in pain, anyway. Returning life hurt as much as disappearing did. Hands touched my chest, and a jolt of what felt like electricity burned through me, making me gasp and try to curl up. But I couldn’t. My arms and legs were useless. My eyes opened and the first thing I saw was a blood-streaked Arun reaching for me again. “No,” I rasped. “No more zapping.”

  “She’s alive!” Coral was the one crying. “Stop before your hands get worse. Please, Arun.”

  Arun shook his head. “Always before if the spark was gone, I could do nothing. Her spark was gone.” He looked at me, and the raw grief that ravaged his expression hurt. “You had no spark. No prickly glares.” He pulled me up against him and I didn’t miss his wince or the way he hugged me more with his wrists than his hands. “I’m so sorry, Katriel. So sorry for pushing you into that fire.” His voice broke. “I’ve never seen anything—”

  “Shh,” I managed to get out. My throat still felt dry and kind of rusty. “Accident.”

  The sound of fighting around us increased and the ground shook, sending alarm through my still mostly useless limbs.

  “More giants,” Raven said. “Gods! More are coming!” She jumped up and took off.

  “You have to go back,” I told Arun. “Take them down with your monster vines.”

  “You saw that?” He pulled back, and it was then I noticed his hands were blistered and nearly black.

  I gasped and held his wrist. “From healing me?” I whispered, then shivered.

  “I don’t care about my hands, Kat. Damn, you were dead.” He pulled me back against him. This time, I was able to wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze. “It was my fault. You told me this would happen and I didn’t believe you.”

  “I’m okay,” I whispered. “And I saw your trick with the vines because I was still here. With Hildr.” I pulled back and looked around. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She seemed weak after she shared her abilities with me.” He looked at his hands, shook his head. “I don’t feel that same level of power now. I don’t think I can bring anyone back again.” His expression fell. “I don’t think she can, either.”

  “Brigg?” I asked around the lump in my throat. “Nanna?”

  “Brigg is gone for sure. I don’t know about Nanna.”

  Someone screamed and the cry was full of such pain, Arun jumped to his feet. “Please, stay out of the way
until you have your feet all the way back, okay?”

  My borrowed blue parka suddenly appeared in front of my face and I looked up at Coral just as she dropped to her knees and hugged me hard. I waved Arun on before hugging her back.

  He took one last look, then ran back to the fighting. I hoped he could send out the vines—hoped he didn’t try to use the sword with his hands. It had looked like he’d absorbed the burn from my body and if that was what happened, his pain had to be intense. I squeezed Coral and vowed that if we got through this, I was learning to fight.

  “I’m never arguing with you again,” Coral said as she sobbed into my hair.

  “Yeah, you will.”

  She snorted, pulled back and smoothed my hair down. She helped me into the coat. “I know. You’ll annoy me soon enough.” She winked, touched my hair again. “You have your hair back. I’m so glad that—” She suddenly broke off as she looked over my shoulder, then scrambled to her feet and lifted the huge bag she always had somewhere near. “Take another step and I will do worse than paint you with blood runes. I have spells in this bag. Good ones.”

  I had feeling in my legs, but I was having trouble getting them to work, so I had to look over my shoulder at the elf Branton had called Vrunlin, who stood there with his two brothers.

  “See?” Vrunlin said as he grinned and sidled closer. “Magnificent.”

  “He speaks English,” I said half under my breath.

  “He learned so he could talk to us,” Coral answered. She didn’t turn around, just stood protectively over me. “Not another step, Vrunlin.”

  “Call me Father,” he said.

  “Not on your life.” Coral’s voice was almost a growl.

  “Guess I shouldn’t have been worrying about you so much, huh, Coral?” I said. She was fierce standing over me like that—even with baggies in her hands.

  “What is it you always say? Never underestimate a small package.” She made the growling noise again and opened one of the bags.

  It didn’t stop the long-haired elf from reaching for her. She cried out, her head snapping to the side, and for an instant, terror froze me in place as I remembered him trying to rip out my neck. Then I found my muscles and got slowly to my feet. I swayed, held on to a tree and bunched the back of her coat in my fist to pull her back to me. She glanced at me briefly and I saw red scratches on her cheek.

  Vrunlin yelled, turned and attacked his brother. The third brother jumped in and snow formed a cloud around them as they fell and rolled. Bits of blood flew into the air—red like ours, I noticed—and then heavier splashes of blood started to streak the trees around us as they turned those clawed fingers on each other.

  “Gods,” I murmured, trying to see around the blood, snow and writhing bodies. “I think he’s killing his brothers. They are truly morbid.”

  “I think something is wrong with the brother, anyway. The one in the white uniform. He keeps grabbing his head and screaming. Once he actually foamed at the mouth.”

  “Wish I’d been here for that. And it’s my fault. I painted a Kauno rune on his forehead with my blood.”

  She turned and grabbed me, hugging me fiercely again. “We are nothing like those elves, Kat. Nothing. You were dead. Really dead. And Raven and I both felt it. It was like someone cut me in half.” She squeezed harder and I grimaced because everything still felt tender. “You are never, ever allowed to die again.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, patting her back. “I didn’t plan to the first time. Let’s move away from them.” I nodded toward the bloodthirsty triplets ripping each other to shreds.

  Coral stepped away from me and stopped. She reached back, gripped my hand. “Something is in the woods.”

  Branches snapped and the terror that flowed through me nearly froze me in place as I saw glowing eyes coming out of the growing dark. “Wolves,” I whispered.

  She swiped up her bag and we ran past the still fighting elves and stopped by the water.

  “Gods,” Coral murmured as her head turned left and right, awe in her voice. “Look at all of them.”

  Hundreds of wolves circled our area. Hundreds. Silent and watchful, they stood as if waiting for the outcome. Or the bodies.

  For food.

  I shuddered, then winced when swarms of ravens filled the sky and started their loud cries. The volume rose until it drowned out the piercingly loud screeches of the giants.

  Raven came running toward us. “Look at the wolves. Gods, we have to find a way to fight! We’re supposed to be doing something—I know it!” Raven looked at me, her horror vivid in the waning light. “There has to be a way we’re supposed to help here. Why didn’t we get strength like the others?”

  “This is just like that first fight against the giants,” Coral said. “I felt so helpless then. I hate this.” She choked.

  Everywhere I looked, the chaos of fighting, yelling and magic filled my sight. Giants and elves fought with terrifying force, their fierce determination to help Loki put an end to this world so strong, nothing short of death would make any of them give up.

  And Loki wasn’t even here.

  I didn’t even want to think about why.

  I hated—absolutely hated—that my sisters and I didn’t have the strength to fight these monsters. Coral fell to her knees next to me, pulling open the baggies she still held clutched in her hands, and my eyes went global when I saw a stream of light coming from her fingers. I dropped next to her, grabbed her wrist to hold her hand in the air. “Gods, look!”

  Raven squatted next to us. “I see it, too.” She started pawing through the bags of herbs. “Your magic is getting stronger. I wonder why? Man, Coral, maybe you can do something to help.”

  “You can all do something.”

  The whispered words were followed by a low gurgling cough. I jumped to my feet and faced the elf who was supposed to be our father. Keeping my eye on him, I bent and picked up a big rock. It had worked on Branton earlier, after all.

  Not that I’d need to hit this pitiful-looking creature.

  The stream of blood dripping from the elf’s mouth looked so strange against his marbled black skin. Some of his silvery-white hair had soaked up the red, too. He’d been ravaged—his clothes and his body beneath slashed so badly, I didn’t understand how he still stood. Then he slumped to his knees.

  The bodies of his brothers lay still behind him. He’d ripped his own brothers to pieces. I gagged but gripped the rock higher. Just in case.

  “Magnificent,” he murmured, his grin so full of self-pride, it took effort to keep from smashing his head in with my rock.

  Raven put her hand on my arm, forced me to lower the makeshift weapon. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

  “No, you don’t. This...this thing raped our mother.”

  “I did,” he whispered, then coughed and spit up more blood in a spray that made both Raven and me step farther away from him. “I was to set everything in motion. And I was to take out the norns if the curse failed.”

  “Curse?” Raven stepped closer to him and knelt.

  I rolled my eyes and stepped next to her, making sure he saw I had the rock ready to go if he so much as reached for her. The shiver that crawled slowly down my spine had nothing to do with the expression I had to be reading wrong on his face. That was not love.

  Love wasn’t his sick fascination. Love sure as hell hadn’t been a part of what he’d just done to his own family.

  Coral crept forward. She held some of her protection bags in her hands. She dropped one that had been tied to a red ribbon over Raven’s head. I smirked until she stood, frowned at me and stuck one over my head.

  “They worked with Taran and his friends,” she whispered. “So shut up.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yeah, you did. I know that expression
and—” She broke off, turned and dropped down beside Raven next to the elf.

  I sighed and lifted the rock again.

  He laughed and fell onto his back fully, and more blood spilled from his mouth. He swallowed audibly, and my stomach lurched over the thought of all the blood he was ingesting.

  Coral started to touch him and I actually felt her sympathy pouring off her in waves. I gave serious thought to whacking her on the head.

  “You said curse, not prophecy.” Coral leaned over him. “The thing with the warriors and us? That was a curse?”

  He started to nod, then choked again. His eyes closed and he went still and I thought for sure he’d finally died; then he opened them again and pinned that black-eyed stare on Raven, then Coral, then me. “The curse is strong. Was made with the blood of many...from your family.”

  “Wait,” I asked, leaning closer because his voice had gone pretty low. “Which side?”

  “Both,” he whispered. “Your mother’s family was massacred. When she came back from the grove, she found them.”

  The acid that rushed into my throat made me turn away and bend over. I gasped, gulped in air that squeezed past the burning lump of horror in my throat.

  “You killed your own family members, too?” Raven asked. She was barely holding on. I could hear it in her voice. I looked at her to find her skin had turned as white as a sheet.

  Tears fell in a steady stream down Coral’s cheeks.

  Why were they surprised? They’d just watched him kill his brothers.

  All of a sudden, everything around me slipped into this surreal blurred moving picture—like the battle going on, the wolves silently watching, the kids fighting to stop Loki from whatever it was he was trying to do with this jacked-up Ragnarok—it all became like a movie. One happening somewhere else. I took a deep breath. Then another. Was this some sort of delayed result of dying? Black spots danced in front of my eyes, and then I was on the ground, staring at the rock in my hand and wondering how it had gotten there.