Chapter 27 #2
Though Heimir, Tryggvi, and Hálfdan seemed equally stricken with anguish, Sigurd’s expression was empty, as if he observed waves rolling across the sea. Black wolfskin cloak atop his dark head, Kveld watched her with otherworldly golden eyes.
Her throat clenched as she remembered the last time she had faced an opponent in single combat.
Sigurd could have claimed her hand by defeating her in the Sólhjarta Tournament. But he had knelt at her feet, sacrificing his own glory for hers, so that she could rise as a Valkyrie.
Now, she faced a warrior who would strike her down and win her hand. A man who sought his own glory at her expense.
Brynhildr unsheathed Sólfalkr from her hip, her Sun Falcon shield raised, and lunged. But Gunnar disarmed her with a single, swift blow, and her gleaming sword clattered to the stone-covered ground.
Gunnar strode confidently across the courtyard, retrieved her sword, and snidely returned it to her, hilt first. Victory blazed on his triumphant face.
“I have won your hand. Pack your belongings. We depart at dawn for Rh?neholl.” He flashed her a radiant, gloating grin.
“We shall wed on the next full moon.” Gunnar spun to Heimir.
“Prepare a betrothal feast for tonight, King Heimir. Brynhildr is now my bride.”
The grilled dorade, her favorite fish, and langoustines in herbed butter— small, succulent lobsters which she normally adored—stuck like sand in her tight throat.
Sigurd ate heartily, oblivious to her distress, not even casting a glance her way.
He laughed with Gunnar and Hogni, imbibed in too much mead, and retired early to the chambers he shared with his two bloodsworn brothers.
They want to keep us apart. Perhaps they fear I can undo their móeir’s wretched curse.
Frustrated, furious, and forsaken, Brynhildr wept alone in her forlorn bed.
At dawn, after breaking their fast, the three ships set sail from Hlymdalir.
Though Gunnar demanded that Brynhildr accompany him on his snekkja, Kveld insisted she voyage on úlfalkr, under his loyal protection.
“A princess must sail under guard until she is duly wed,” he told Gunnar.
“You must wait until the ceremony at Rh?neholl.”
They snaked northward along the Rh?ne, Sigurd standing at the prow, staring at the sunlight on the dark waters.
Distant. Dazed. Distracted.
Brynhildr gazed at the triple bindrune Kveld had carved into the deck, remembering the blood oath she and Sigurd had sworn in seier and starlight.
As if he read her thoughts, Kveld appeared at her side and spoke quietly into her ear.
“I know you carry Sigurd’s child,” he said softly, his deep voice comforting and reassuring.
“A dóttir, to be born on the winter solstice.” He raised her hand to his bristled lips, a knowing smile splitting his braided black beard.
Warning flared in his shrewd amber eyes.
“We cannot return to Rh?neholl, for the queen will sense the babe—and you both shall be in grave danger.”
He pointed east toward the alpine mountains.
“We are close to the monastery with the sacred spring. You must bathe Sigurd in its healing waters, to cleanse him of the curse, as he once did for you. And make love in the moonlight—that the dragonfire of the ouroboros binding your souls through seier will burn away all traces of the malva’s malevolent spell. ”
The tangy breeze from the river snapped the wolf sail above them, ruffling the black fur of his gleaming wolfskin cloak. “Tonight, do not drink the ale. We shall make our escape when they fall into a drugged sleep.”
At dusk, when they beached along the shore to make camp for the night, Kveld, Tryggvi, and Hálfdan set up Brynhildr’s tent. The Nightwolf carved runes into the leaf-strewn ground all around it, chanting protective wards softly under his breath.
Gunnar glowered with lust-fueled rage and barely restrained fury. “She is mine by right of the sword,” he grunted, scowling as his crew pitched the royal tent behind him.
“No one enters without her will.” Kveld settled onto a stone before the oiled linen walls of her tent. The snarling black beast atop the Nightwolf’s dark head was as much a deterrent as the runes, which glimmered faintly with seier in the etched loam.
Later that night, when Gunnar, Hogni, and the men from the two snekkja were snoring around the fire, Kveld nodded to the crew of úlfalkr, who quickly loaded bedrolls and supplies onto the ship.
The Nightwolf helped Brynhildr settle beneath the mast, while Tryggvi and Hálfdan carried a sleeping Sigurd onto the deck and laid him on blankets at her side.
“At the monastery, we’ll carry him to the sacred spring and lower Sigurd into the waterfall pool for you to bathe him.
The cold water will revive him enough that you can make him drink—and the curative waters will wash away the sleep.
When you bring him into the cottage and make love in the moonlight, the ouroboros will burn away the witch’s wretched curse. ”
Brynhildr touched the side of Kveld’s scarred, inked face.
The deep blue runes and black braided beard glistened in the starlight.
As tears welled in her eyes, she leaned forward and kissed his bristled cheek.
“The Norns themselves wove you into our fate. You are bound to us both as surely as a bloodsworn broeir.”