by Kate Pearce
The boat arrived along the shoreline before sunset.
Drifa had no one waiting for her.
After asking for directions to the Forsvollr great hall, she set out along a dirt path from the shoreline toward the city. From a distance, it appeared larger than it actually was. Someone had used cut stone to carve out plots of land for homes and such, but even with a sense of order, there were far too many people compared to Niflheim.
Not long after walking through the city, she reached the hall. The place was filled with talking men. Both inside and out. A massive courtyard was full of dragons shuffling about at their tied posts. The dragon’s keep. It had been years since she’d seen a dragon. Not a single one had been spotted near the far north where she had lived. Even her village in the Outlands never had the resources to care for them. They ate far more than most men needed to live. Feeding the children was more important than those useless beasts.
One dragon in particular stood out from the rest. A sea of blood-red creatures had a blot of white. Somehow a warrior had a white dragon as his steed. This dragon hissed at anyone who got too close and tugged against the steel binding that tethered it to its pole. Where the other beasts had longer, sleek bodies, this one had thick, corded muscles along its arms and legs. Its snout twitched as it shook its head side to side. When her stare lingered too long, its glare matched her own.
Its mouth slowly slid open to reveal two rows of jagged teeth. She stopped in her tracks. A wicked smile invited her to come close.
Come see what I have to show you, it practically beckoned.
No, thank you, she thought.
A strange sensation tickled along the back of her neck, practically urging her to look at it, but she ignored the persistent tugs. The dragon was a curiosity and nothing more. It had been years since she’d last seen a white dragon and the sadness connected to that day wasn’t a time she should recall during wartime.
She strode toward the great hall, ignoring the gazes on her back. No one else wore white capes. Her clothing marked her for what she was. Those who had the memories to remember the Women of the Frost, anyway.
The heavy odor of meade and smoke from pipes filled the air and bit into her eyes. Just another thing to get used to again. No one stopped her as she trudged through the throng of bodies searching out the circle of men who had summoned her.
She found them in no time.
“Our final warrior has arrived,” an older man droned. “Drifa Ragnardottir.”
So she was the last of how many? She glanced about seeing vaguely familiar and unfamiliar faces from other clans in the Outlands, but there were too many men in the room to be able to surmise who’d join in the fight.
She approached the older man and nodded with respect.
“How was your journey?” Brimir, the chieftain of Forsvollr asked.
As entertaining as it would be to regale them with how she fought off men during her boat trip, she decided to keep her mouth shut. “Uneventful.”
Brimir laughed from his seat, wiping ale off the white and black stubble on his pointy chin. He assessed her with kind brown eyes. “The quiet will end soon. You have been called as the others have been called.” He gestured to a long table in one of the corners where four men sat drinking and eating. They presented their backs so she didn’t recognize them. Four men, including Brimir and herself, wasn’t a suitable force. There were many clans in Muspellheim, why hadn’t more warriors showed up?
Brimir stood, towering above her. For an older man, he still had a warrior’s build.
She followed him over to the table.
“How late am I?” she asked.
“We waited for two others, men who came from the far south,” he replied. “But since everyone has arrived we can discuss our plans.”
She approached a free seat. One of the men, a warrior with narrow gray eyes and hair shorn along the sides, growled at her. “Fetch me another drink, girl.”
“Find someone else.” She took her place at the last remaining seat, and wanted to turn right back around and return north when she saw who sat next to her.
He was the tallest man at the table. Even with the dim light from the torches around them and smoke in the room she made out his light brown hair and dark eyes. She remembered everything about him. Their gazes locked and he didn’t say a word, nor did his expression change.
“What’s a tiny girl like you doing here?” The man who wanted her to play fetch leered at her.
“Shut your mouth, Jor!” Brimir barked. “She’s here to represent her clan. What’s left of it.”
Jor laughed. “What good will she be with her little toothpick? My little dottir could spear fish with it.”
“How about you pull out the damn blade that’s stuck up your ass and pay attention?” a deep voice said at her side. It was Steinn. She refused to turn and look at him.
The man harrumphed and spit on the floor.
“I don’t need you to defend me,” she whispered to him.
Once they fell silent, Brimir spoke. “We have gathered warriors from each clan today so that we may face the evil coming for us from the east. These offworlders have already decimated two villages. The numbers among our clans have thinned over the years but based on your fighting skills you all are more than capable of meeting the danger. We have an assassin’s blade.” He looked to a man with a shaved head and skin the color of smooth wood. “And even a master rider who has never had the border of his lands breached.” He nodded to Jor. His smile grew even wider. “We even have a witch and a rare ice dragon.”
She glanced about to see who Brimir looked at when he mentioned the white dragon, but the older man’s gaze merely swept over everyone.
The dragon can’t be Steinn’s. They were rare for obvious reasons: you’d freezing your arse off in the north searching for them and establishing a link to command them properly was damn near impossible for a single man.
The last time she’d seen Steinn he’d had one.
Brimir kept going so Drifa tossed her thoughts aside. “I don’t know much, but I do know they fell from the sky on the night the Heaven’s Claw was the most visible. One of the warriors from the far east managed to bring word of their arrival and he brought this with him.” From his pocket, he pulled out a strange shiny, jagged piece of metal. Almost like armor, but far too smooth.
“What is that thing?” the man with the shaved head asked.
“Even the metalsmiths in your clan couldn’t have constructed something so fine, Oddr.” Brimir passed Oddr the piece. “I was told they arrived with weapons we haven’t seen before. They were prepared to attack when they landed, but their weaponry didn’t fire.”
“I've seen something similar to this before, but it was far more aged.” Oddr had the most intense gaze she’d ever seen. “It came from the first travelers who came from the sky.”
As a child, she’d heard the tale of the burning crater left behind in the Outlands when a strange object in the sky fell to the ground. Not much remained behind but charred bodies and metallic pieces that ended up scattered across the Outlands.
“Why didn’t their weapons fire?” Steinn asked.
“No one knows, but what they are missing in their strange technology, they have made up for in numbers,” Brimir grumbled.
Steinn stole a glance in her direction and the heat from his gaze seared her. “You shouldn’t have come,” was all he said to her.
She had a reply ready for him, but when a question came from one of the others, she was caught off guard.
“Are you representing the Women of the Frost?” Jor asked her. “Are there more witches coming?”
“I came in the name of my clan in the Outlands. As far as the witches, the women are all old. Far too old to pick up a sword.” Just imagining a bunch of old women swinging clubs about made her chuckle.
“The plan is to ride east to protect the cities along the border of the Outlands.“ Brimir glanced to each person at the table. “Once Skarfane
s falls they’ll have access to the cities to the west. Those include the smaller villages and valuable crystal deposits.” His gaze grew serious. “This fight will be perilous, but I know we’ll crush those vermin underfoot!”
Roars filled the air and men rose to cheer.
A hand snaked out beside her to grip her wrist. “I think you didn’t hear me earlier when I said you shouldn’t be here.”
Steinn’s hold was firm, but with a hard twist to the left she freed herself. “Is your village not as important as mine?” she bit out.
“Where is your family? Are there no men where you live?” He didn’t look at her once, most likely determined to pretend she wasn’t really here. Steinn used to take her in with one glance that left her breathless. There was something about the way he stared at her as if they had no barriers between them.
“I’m more than capable of holding my own, Viking. Not a single man in my clan has bested me with a staff. Either way, for the last few years, the lack of food and attacks from raiders have thinned us out.”
“Raiders have pushed against my borders as well.”
She stole a glance at him again. How long had it been? Far too many moons. At least over thirty. And yet as she sat next to him, she couldn’t stop herself from taking in his features. His once younger face now had a scar or two to show for it. Brown stubble covered his face, too. He used to smile all the time, and boy did he have the most annoying laugh. A dimple would dot his cheek and she couldn’t resist wanting to reach out for it.
But now a scar marred the cheek where that dimple used to sit. The temptation to ask where he got it came to her, but she ignored it.
He faced forward, sampling his drink so she did the same. His gaze was fixed on the grand fire pit in the center of the room.
What in the two moons should she say? Words tickled the back of her throat, but they refused to come out.
She sucked in a breath, unable to keep an uncomfortable feeling from settling into her chest. A particular day came to mind. It was a late summer one with dry heat that radiated off the sands. Not many ventured outside. Except for her to make her journey to the north.
I did what I had to do, she thought. Her gaze flicked to his, but he continued to stare ahead.
“Do you need a ride to Skarfanes, Lady?” one of the men asked to her left. The sixth one in their group. She pecked at her memories and tried to recall where she’d seen him before. He was familiar—as if she’d seen him from her childhood. It was Hrafn. His clan’s land bordered hers.
“I’ll make my own arrangements.” She didn’t have a dragon so she spoke empty words.
Jor grunted from the other side of the table. “Your fat mount won’t make it over the nearest ridge, much less carry you and that woman.”
Hrafn spat on the floor. “He’ll sail past your old bag of bones. By the time you’re digging a grave for your dragon, I’ll already be fightin’ the enemy.”
A part of her wanted him to say something to Steinn. Wouldn’t he offer her a ride? Was that his ice dragon that waited outside? The day he came to tell her about the white dragon she had been leaving for Niflheim.
“You and I were meant together, Dri,” he had said. “I believe we were meant to be linked.”
And yet things had changed. They changed the moment she chose to leave her village and forget about the promises they’d made each other.
Before he’d sought out his ice dragon, he’d shared a few facts about the riders. One thing he said always drifted through her mind: “Linked riders are rare, Dri. That could be us.”
They were rare, but not that rare. He could’ve found another. Maybe he had and that was why he hadn’t spoken up.
Brimir stood and his kinsmen followed. “We leave at dawn for Skarfanes. Rest well, for you might be sleeping in the afterlife tomorrow.”
She didn’t find his dry laugh amusing.
The four others around her continued to either drink or talk among themselves. A woman sauntered up to the table. The way her hips swayed definitely meant she wasn’t offering anyone something to eat. The blonde approached Steinn from behind and slid her long arms down his wide chest. With a silky grin, the blonde woman whispered words into his ear that she couldn’t hear.
Drifa focused on her drink and placed her hands in her lap—which was rather hard with them so close. She didn’t care what happened next. Even if he might be smiling at the woman who’d promised to warm his bed tonight. They were acquaintances, nothing more.
From the corner of her eye, she caught movement. He was leaving. As much as she wanted to stare down the rim of her cup, she peeked toward his path.
He was alone. The woman had moved onto another man in their group. A much more willing one. Her lusty laugh grew louder as she fell into Oddr’s lap.
A sigh escaped her mouth and relief—which she told herself she wasn’t feeling—filled her. Before she could remind herself to think before she did something foolish, she followed him out of the hall.
By the time she reached him, he was already close to the strange white dragon.
“Steinn.”
He stopped cold and only presented his back to her.
“I wanted to speak with you,” she whispered softly. “Privately, before we begin our journey.”
Moments passed. Far too long for her to hope he’d have kind words to say. Wasn’t three years enough time for him to forgive her for leaving for Niflheim?
“What do you want, Lady?” his words were stiff.
Lady? Was it like that now between them?
“I managed to get here by boat, but I don’t have a way to reach Skarfanes. I was hoping you’d offer a safe journey to our destination.”
She touched his arm but drew back quickly when he flinched. His eyes formed slits. “You should ride with Hrafn. I don’t care how you get there.”
3
The second he turned away from Drifa and walked away he regretted it. But wasn’t a man’s pride worth something? He’d done the right thing a long time ago and let her go to pursue her new life as a witch. She had a legacy to fulfill, but in letting her go he had to let go of his feelings for her.
His stride toward Knurre slowed a bit. Was she still watching him walk away? Letting go was easier said than done apparently.
The dragon watched him with amusement. Most of the time the surely beast merely sat there, its ears twitching to keep the flies at bay. Right now it had an easy grin. Almost like it damn well knew what just happened between Drifa and himself.
He stood next to Knurre’s flank, not far from its mouth—which was about as close as anyone else wanted to get—and stewed. A part of him wanted to turn around and talk to her, to say something and not let her ride with the other men who’d accompany them into battle. Hrafn was the only one he trusted though. They had met often as boys. Hrafn was also married and had children.
The white lizard snorted and gave him a side-glance as if to say, “Does that mean anything?”
“Oh, stop it,” he whispered.
Knurre’s white tail flicked. Steinn turned to glance at it and didn’t see the hard push coming to his back. He went down hard on his knees.
“Damn it, dragon!” That foul dragon had pushed him back toward her.
And she was still standing there, staff in hand, taking them in.
His jaw tightened even more when he spotted dragon shit smeared across his knee.
“I’m not gonna do it. What do you know?” Today would be the last day he dug for ash ticks on Knurre’s itchy back.
He sighed. He was better off without her. The minute she chose the Women of the Frost over him and their pairing, he decided to move on. He had to protect his clan and pining over a woman who had left his side wasn’t what a chieftain did. They found a new woman to warm their bed to help them forget the ones from the past.
She’d find her own way to Skarfanes. Her dirtied, white cloak covered her well enough. And yet, he’d seen the other’s eyes. Even Hrafn had taken in the s
well of her breasts, the way her dress fit over her curves. She had taken care of herself while she’d lived in Niflheim. She was as beautiful as he remembered.
You should go to her and not leave a lady standing there waiting, his father would say.
Exposing his heart to her wasn’t an option. She’d stay for the fight, do her time, and then she’d return to Niflheim for her training. It was her destiny.
It was best for him to remember his.
He scraped the dragon shit off his knee and untied Knurre from the ropes that tethered him to a thick post. A part of the post jutted from the ground, most likely from Knurre’s attempts to escape. Once free, the dragon stretched out its wings and waited—for once—for Steinn to get on the saddle.
Taking off into the sky, he didn’t look back.
***
Forsvollr had plenty of inns along the harbor that would take a woman in. Many of them had unruly men milling about, so Drifa had to choose wisely. When a kind woman spotted her drifting down the road and made her stay with her, the decision became all too easy.
“I won’t have a lady such as yourself associated with the likes of the men around this town. Most of the raiders and traders are here to bed women and you won’t be safe roaming about at night.”
Drifa held back a laugh. One of the more outspoken sisters, who over-shared far too often, boasted at every opportunity. “Before I came here to freeze in this wasteland,” the sister said with a wide grin, “I’ve laid with every scruffy Viking who didn’t mind keeping his sword in his trousers. I wasn’t going to spend my life up here without some good memories to keep me warm at night!”
Sword, indeed.
Forsvollr had a strong stench of dead fish along the Frost River, but that smell didn’t permeate the tiny woman’s home. She fed Drifa fish stew and warm oatmeal. A filling meal before she’d have to rise early to ride with Hrafn.
Asking the burly man had bothered her a bit, but she took it in stride.
