Her Gilded Firebird: Book Three in the Norse Warriors series

by Susannah Shannon

  A cheerful call from Armund caught their attention. Gunnar lifted Elin up so that she could see through the slits cut in the wall for archers. Far below them, looking up as if waiting for a commander, was Hako. When the first wagon began to roll, Hako still paused. Armund explained, “He won’t move until Gunnar’s wagon does. You, lad, have a friend, indeed.”

  Nestled into their bed on wheels, Elin couldn’t resist teasing him a little about the lovelorn moose who was following him.

  Gunnar smiled, but shook his head, “He’s a comrade, not a follower. Hako has plenty of lady moose to choose from. He’s guarding, not traipsing around behind us.” She was a little hesitant with him. Was he going to punish her further? Scold her? He did none of those things. Gathering her into his arms, he whispered into her hair, “I wonder if the wall isn’t your destiny instead of mine.”

  Elin, shocked, went to sit up and clobbered her forehead on the roof.

  While stars swirled in front of her eyes, she started to argue, and instead whispered, “Maybe it’s both of ours, together.”

  Chapter 32

  He kissed her dizziness away, replacing it with an altogether different sort of unbalance. There was no light in the wagon, but he rolled Elin onto her tummy and lifted her skirts. He ran his strong warm hands over the numerous tiny welts. “Their physick gave me something that he said would help these.”

  Elin was not delighted at her husband discussing the state of her punished ass with the crotchety old doctor, but Gunnar rubbing on the cool, soothing liquid made it hard to be unhappy.

  “I won’t ever speak to a Paladin like that again, “she assured him.

  “I know baby, I know.” They fell asleep still in their clothes a watching the stars race by overhead.

  Word had spread ahead of them, and as they arrived at each keep, they found forges ready. The work was exhausting, and Elin was worried about the number of burns Gunnar was receiving. She tried to put cool cloths on them and treat them with lavender emollient, but he got so many new ones every day that it seemed a fool’s errand.

  She was standing behind him at Midmount Keep when he yanked his shirt over his shoulders and handed it to her.

  “Wait, “she said, turning him back around to get a better view of his back. “When did you get these scars tattooed?” she asked.

  “Don't be silly, I have some small tattoos,” he gestured to his collarbone. “But I only have one gilded scar, it’s the one on my back. The straight line up and down.”

  He no longer had any such gilded scar. What she thought was that scar was now in an arc across his right shoulder blade and it somehow had a matching one on his left.

  She stared at the inexplicable tattoos so long while he hammered the glowing metal that she felt her senses leave her, she could have sworn that she was looking at a set of wings. She shook her head and went to find something productive to do.

  Armund called after her and Elin was delighted to put her hand under his arm and walk with the wise, gentleman. He was the perfect person to answer her questions. “I thought that a tattoo artist gilded the scars?”

  Armund stopped. “Nothing gets by you does it, my sweet girl? I have never seen a warrior be able to self-gild before. I had thought to get Tartu the official gilder of the Snowforce, to meet us to gild him, and then I noticed that he appeared to already be. I can only suspect that something the burns react differently than other kinds of wounds. “

  “But you don’t really know?”

  “What can any of us really know about magic? I know what has been observed before. We are seeing what I can only describe as an avalanche as magic. “

  “An avalanche?”

  “A term of speech, somehow magic is coursing along the wall. Currents and counter-currents, dark and light. All I know is that when I sleep, I see the Snowforce carried on those large shoulders.”

  “Why would Hoor want to destroy the wall?”

  “The wall runs along a deep channel of magic, we have been able to bind him to the far side of the wall, he wants more. He wants the whole world.”

  “I thought he wanted the kingdom of Ryska?”

  “He was using Ryska, but with the empress, Irina returned to power, he has had to adopt more direct means. “

  There was always something to be done at a keep. Elin found she enjoyed meeting the women, who all knew who she was. She was not treated like a guest, but rather a much-missed daughter. While Gunnar plied his trade, she learned to embrace her new life. A stool would be brought to wherever the others were working, and wool and a drop spindle put into her hand. The stories of the keep were becoming known to her. She was sitting in Mid Mount keep, halfway up the wall, listening to stories of General Georg and his best friend Jonis as boys. They had once been locked in their dormitory by a fed-up dame and managed to pry open a window, cast a rope onto the battlements of the fort and rappel onto the roof before sneaking into her kitchen to filch the Yuletide candy she had been making. Seeing Elin’s smile, an older woman chimed in, “don’t think yours wasn’t naughty too, he was all kinds of mischief…”

  Elin leaned forward, neglecting her spindle and botching the yarn she was making. “Tell me,” she cajoled.

  “Well, I was the cook at pinnacle back then when I was barely a girl myself,” there was a collective eye roll since this woman looked to be close to 80 and Gunnar was certainly not anything like seventy. “He got so angry at one of his mates that he stormed out of the room and without meaning to he tore the door off its hinges.”

  Elin gasped, “I’ve seen him do that!”

  “Yes, but this were when he was twelve!”

  “Has he always been a giant?”

  Many of the older women joined in, Gunnar was not a lad any of them would have quickly forgotten. He had been one of the younger boys his first year, but always the biggest. “Even before he hit manhood, he was nearly as wide as tall, “one of them added.

  “I thought it was so strange that he got so sick all the time,” continued another.

  The former cook gave a hearty nod, “I just figured there must be something wrong with ‘mi.” She tapped her temple, “Up here.”

  Elin stood firmly, intending to berate the ignorant woman and remind her that they should all be lined up on their knees to kiss Gunnar’s left foot since apparently their entire bloody wall could only be saved by him. Before she could begin her diatribe, the world shifted sideways. For a second, she thought that she had fainted. The entire kitchen had lurched over. Elin saw her ball of yarn go rolling down the floor that was now sharply sloped. Something thudded into her, and she clutched out and grabbed the querulous old woman before she could go careening away. Elin saw Liv deliberately crawling up the floor, which was now very much not a floor. With sudden insight, Elin realized that they needed to extinguish the embers that were now rolling all over the place. The table had not moved when everything else had, and Elin used all her strength to nestle the old woman against a table leg which left her tormentor at a very awkward angle. Elin had to but was presume this was better than the older woman being tossed across the room. She was able to catch a pan lid that was skittering past her. It was not easy, but by pressing herself as flat as she could and digging in with her left hand and the tips of her shoes, she was able to traverse across the tilting surface. When she reached some coals, she pressed the lid over them and although her palm was getting burned, held it fast over them. Around her, other women were doing the same thing, with whatever was at hand. Everything seemed to pause, and then, just as suddenly, they were pitched back the other way. Forcing herself to ignore the terror and pandemonium all around her, she painstakingly went after every spark and ember she could see. Soon both hands were burned, and the smell of burning hair filled her nostrils. Determinedly she held on, if the keep went up in flames then all of Gunnar’s Blademastery, all of the risks so many people had taken would all have been in vain. The blood rushing through her ears sounded like a horn blowing. She didn’t dare stop, ev
en as the room shuddered again and seemed to right itself. Chairs, baskets, and loose pieces of firewood rolled back the other way. Throwing herself upon the last ember, she smashed it repeatedly with the pan lid and then just to be certain it was truly doused spit on the ashes.

  She heard the chuckle before she noticed the boots. Looking upward, she was astonished to see a tall woman wearing breeches with a tunic and a coat with a horn nestled into a sash across her chest. While Elin was still utterly discombobulated, a door was flung open, and the room was suddenly filled with warriors. Elin was shocked when instead of helping her up, prince Georg dropped to a knee. “Welcome, Mother,” he said solemnly.

  Elin looked from the very young-looking warrior woman to an already kneeling Liv. As Elin scrambled from her prone position, she asked“Is that the king’s mother?” she said in a voice that came out much louder than she had anticipated.

  Liv rolled her eyes in a way that conveyed that Elin was unusually stupid. “No,” she whispered. “That’s the Huntrix Signa, she’s the queen of the…” Liv’s whisper grew more hoarse. ”Witches.”

  Georg corrected her, “Mother superior of the Acolytes of the crescent moon, the old faith…”

  “Older than what?” Elin blurted out. Noticing that everyone else was still deeply bowed, Elin hunched her shoulders further down in what she hoped was a respectful gesture. Signa squatted in front of her and used two fingers to lift Elin’s chin. “Before the present Gods arrived, our mother, the moon, was watching over us, Elin, the healer.”

  Signa gave a graceful upward swish of her fingers, and everyone took that as license to stand.

  “What happened?” Elin asked awkwardly.

  “ New Gods arrived, and they were petty and jealous.”

  “No, I mean today, what happened today?”

  The shutters on the windows were still thrown open, and silently several sylphlike fighters entered through them. Elin was agog. The women wore tunics and breeches tucked into boots. Each of them had a knife tucked into her belt.

  Signa answered Elin’ s question. “Something is trying to tunnel under the wall.”

  Their clothing was deep green and yet seemed to gleam. It was all Elin could do to restrain herself to not reach out and touch the hair of the Huntrix closest to her. Every Huntrix had jet black hair. It hung down her back tightly wrapped in fiber. Signa’s hair had hundreds of tiny sections wrapped in cords which were then combined and bound into more cords. It hung down to her waist in one long, controlled ponytail. The Huntrix smiled, “It’s an arrow string. When someone we love passes, we use their arrow string to bind our braids, it allows us to take them into battle with us.”

  “You have lost many then, ”Elin answered.

  “Too many,” was the reply.

  Ignoring the fact that there were actual generals and soldiers in the room who should probably be the ones to ask the questions, Elin plunged ahead. “Why here? Wouldn’t ice demons be further north?”

  Signa gave her an indulgent smile. “ As far as we could see the entire wall pitched, we just happened to be near here.”

  Elin was about to ask “Why?”

  Georg offered his arm to Signa, “We owe you thanks for coming to our aid,”

  “Even though we are not allowed on your precious wall?”

  “The world is changing Huntrix, for now, I make you welcome.” both of them were being very diplomatic, but Elin sensed a deep mistrust between them.

  The warrior women, who to Elin’s eye looked more like girls, were offered kitchen chairs, by women who were clearly nervous around them. Warm drinks were passed around. Elin noted that before the guests took a single sip, each dipped a fingertip into the liquid and lightly ran it around precisely half of the rim of their glass. Noticing Elin staring, one of them, she had bright blue eyes, spoke. “It’s a prayer, we are what the snowforce would call a battalion- we call ourselves the force of the half moon, so this, “she repeated the gesture on the table, “is how we recognize our source.”

  “Oh,“ was all Elin could think to say. “My husband is the Blademaster.”

  “I know, who you are, I am Fasen,” said the girl.

  “I’ve never heard that name before.”

  “it’s not a name, it’s what I am.”

  “What name did your parents give you?”

  This was apparently a very rude question, and the Fasen's eyes flashed. “How would I know?”

  Elin fortified herself with a sip from her own glass. “Forgive me, I misspoke. Can you tell me about your order?”

  Elin was relieved to see that “order” was apparently the correct term. The Sisters of the Moon seemed to be a combination of a military and religious group.

  “We are warriors claimed by the Moon goddess. Signa is her earthly manifestation. We defend the light.”

  “Forgive me, I didn’t grow up knowing about any of this,” Elin gestured around the room, “I thought the wall was a legend, I had no idea there were moon warrior girls and wood sprites that could talk to reindeer.”

  Fasen or was it “the fasen?” Elin wondered, seemed to soften.

  “Like the snowforce, we train, but we begin as infants of course.”

  Elin had a sudden mental picture of Gertie with a tiny horn in one hand and a dagger in the other.

  “Infants?”

  Armund had entered the room without Elin being aware of it, and he took hold of the conversation. “Fasen,” he said with a regal half bow, ”Elin has been sheltered from some of the more heinous aspects of our world. She is one of eight daughters.”

  “Do I know the others?”

  Armund responded, “No dear, they were all raised on the farm by their parents.”

  A horror was growing under Elin’s breast. Some families would not keep so many daughters, the Huntrix of the Moon must somehow find and train those girls. “I am sorry I asked about your parents.”

  Fasen smiled, ”Signa is all the mother I could ever need.”

  Elin stood, “I need to go see if Gunnar needs anything, they must be relighting his forge.”

  “No, it’s already too dark,” was Fasen ’s reply.

  ”Well, there might be enough moonlight for him to get some more done.”

  Fasen held one of her string wrapped, jet black plaits out, “Not tonight, there won’t be.”

  Elin didn’t know what to make of this bizarre response, but she nodded goodbye and went to find her husband.

  Gunnar was sequestered in the library with the general, Ake and Signe. A maid caught Elin and showed her to a grand bedroom. They would spend the night in the keep. The bed was so spacious that Elin wondered if she would find it hard to sleep with Gunnar not pressed up so tightly beside her.

  She was taking a fresh dress out of her trunk when Gunnar joined her. “Dinner will be simple after all that has happened today. We will get to bed early and get as much done as we can tomorrow. The swords I already got done today have been sent on ahead. The center part of the wall is the most vulnerable, so they have to be fully armed.”

  “Wouldn’t the far north be the most vulnerable from ice demons?”

  “Pinnacle Keep has Jonis, the gilded dragon. They are safe. Anyway, the wall is letting us go when it wants and keeping us here when it wants. We must presume it knows what it’s doing. ”

  Gunnar stripped off and dropped his filthy clothes onto the floor.

  Chapter 33

  The room they were in had a permanent private bath. Elin had never seen such a thing. It was not as large as the multi-person bathing halls she had seen at other keeps. It had a single sunken tub and no visible fire under the boiler. Gunnar explained that this far north boiling water came out of the ground. Elin was skeptical of this, but when he turned the tap and steaming water roiled out, she could only believe him. Elin felt that a wife should prepare her husband’s bath. At home, she and her mother had hauled buckets from the boiler for everyone to bathe in a tub that would be stored outside once everyone was clean. Havi
ng no idea how the contraption worked, she sat on the bed and watched Gunnar fiddle with taps until the tub was filled with lovely hot, but not scalding water. There was a hutch filled with towels and something Elin had never seen before a firm, lavender scented square. She scratched it with her fingernail, “Is this a candle?” she asked, although it bore no wick.

  “No, it’s soap.” Elin had both seen and made a great deal of soap in her short life, but it hadn’t looked like this. The soap she was used to was a soft gel that filled a bucket, it could be used on clothing or dishes or skin. At the Eastern castle, the soap that had been poured over her had been a soothing liquid.

  “Are you sure this is soap?” she sniffed it skeptically. It smelled wonderful.

  “I am absolutely sure,” he responded, shucking his filthy tunic and breeches. He had washed his hands before he left the forge, but a tremendous amount of soot still clung to his arms and around his neck. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “Get your dress off.”

  “I don’t need a bath,” she laughed stepping away from him. With a quick lunge, he had her over his shoulder and ran his filthy arms over the back of her legs, “Now you do!”

  Gunnar stepped down into the bath and at the last minute flipped Elin over so that she didn’t go head first into the water. Elin began to giggle helplessly. With Gunnar in the tub, she sort of perched above the water line. There was no way on earth they could both fit. She clamored off him and soaped up his back. There was a dipper near the tub, and she used it to pour clean water over his shoulders, rinsing the sweet-smelling suds away. Gunnar rolled his head back enjoying the hot water flowing over his muscles. Elin ran her tongue along his shoulder blade reveling as he shuddered in pleasure. She grew braver and gave his neck a gentle bite. He dug his fingers into her hair and urged her onward. She grazed his throat with her teeth and pressed her breasts against him. Reaching for his hand, she moved it between her eager thighs and ground her pearl against him. A thick finger slid deep into her while his thumb switched back and forth, driving her wild with lust. She pulled him closer to her, leaning back so that her ass perched on the edge of the tub. As her legs wrapped around his waist, he plunged deep inside of her. Only his strong arms prevented her from falling back onto the wet stone floor. He teased her, slowly withdrawing almost all the way and then hesitating before slamming into her. She decided that she could tease him too, and reached a hand down to cup his balls as he moved in and out of her. He responded with a groan. He lifted her off of the ledge and held her tightly in his arms while he fucked her relentlessly. Elin buried her face in his throat and wept with pleasure. Gunnar came deep within her. She was still clasped in his arms with her legs wrapped around his waist when there was a sharp knock on the door.