Chapter 6
Skadi
Haldor stood on the scorched ground, gripping his injured arm with the strip of linen he’d torn from the lining of his tunic.
He watched Skjold—clad in the noaidi white bearskin cloak, the fierce blue dragon tattoo coiling around his neck—help the young woman from the deck of the snekkja longship onto the grassy bank of the shore.
A glimmer of magic flowed between them, like starlit waters of an icy fjord.
Wrapped in a dark blue cloak over a light purple gown, her pearlescent skin radiated an otherworldly glow, shimmering like spun silver.
Although tangled and matted from salty winds and sea spray, her pale blonde hair tumbled in wild waves to her narrow waist. Wintry blue eyes sparkled with violet light, like the frostfire flames of Skjold’s ísfir shield.
Despite her ethereal beauty, tremendous power emanated from the ice maiden.
Undoubtedly why the Dokkálfar had captured her.
As Skjold led the lady up the hill, Haldor reflected how the magic sparking between them reminded him of the first time he’d seen úlvhild.
Her wild mane had also tumbled to her waspish waist…
but of deepest black instead of moonlit blonde.
His volva’s eyes had glowed with otherworldly light, but molten gold rather than icy blue.
Her magic had sparked his own, the current between them sizzling with passion.
And when their bodies had melded in ecstasy, their magic had merged as one.
An immutable, infinite bond entwined them—heart, body and soul.
As tantalizing images of úlvhild’s long limbs wrapped around his throbbing body throttled him with unbearable longing, grief gripped Haldor in a crushing, suffocating vice.
Three days was all he had left to live. For he’d been wounded by a Dokkálfar blade.
Haldor would never see his beloved volva again, nor ask for her hand one last time. Inhaling sharply, he pulled bracingly cold, cleansing salt air deep into his constricted lungs. Now that fate had tragically altered his plans, he decided on a new course of action.
He would give úlvhild the ísfálkr spear, which Skjold had retrieved for him on the enemy ship and now carried up the rocky incline.
His Battle Wolf—Haldor smiled wistfully at the Norse meaning of úlvhild’s name—could wield the Dwarven weapon alongside Skjold, his father Sk?rde, and Jarl Rikard, the Viking Duke of Normandy.
To defend the Land of the White Chalk Cliffs against the enemy Franks.
Along the alabaster coast of her beloved Pays de Caux.
Haldor lifted the blood-soaked linen strip and peered at the festering wound on his right inner forearm.
A foul-smelling pus oozed from the deep gash, and black swirls snaked like sinister shadows from the angry, reddened skin.
At Skjold’s approach with the young woman, he quickly covered the wound to conceal it from his acolyte’s perceptive gaze.
Although Haldor would not live to see úlvhild again, he was determined to get Skjold to the village of V?gan.
Where the Blóesmier crew would sail him home to the Pays de Caux.
For the Son of the Dragon to fulfill úlvhild’s fateful prophecy.
“Haldor, this is Skadi. She is a Ljósálfar healer!” Elation blazed like blue fire in Skjold’s exhilarated gaze.
As incredulous relief flooded Haldor, a deluge of thoughts and emotions stole his speech.
“Thank you for saving my life, Lord Falk. Now please allow me to save yours.” Skadi’s radiant smile bathed Haldor in shimmering, otherworldly light.
“I retrieved ísfálkr from the deck of the snekkja. Near the Dokkálfar guard you turned to stone.” Grinning from ear to bearded ear, Skjold proudly handed the Dwarven spear back to Haldor.
Dvalinn, who had been tending the wounded dwarf that had fallen from the ledge, now approached hurriedly with Inga.
“A Ljósálfar healer. Odin be praised!” Dvalinn presented Inga, his cook who was also skilled in healing herbs.
She had applied a poultice to Durinn’s wounded leg and bandaged it in a swath of white linen.
“Inga and her husband Gunnar live here with me,” Dvalinn continued the introductions.
“And my two nephews, Dáinn and Durinn, my Dwarven blacksmith apprentices.” Dvalinn gestured to the pair of copper-haired dwarves whose long red beards were braided with glowing amber beads like their uncle’s.
Dvalinn flashed Skadi a sooty, welcoming grin, “Come, my lady, while Gunnar and Dáinn help Durinn up the stairs, allow me to welcome you to N?ttgraf. The clifftop cave I proudly call home.”
A surprisingly charming host, Dvalinn gallantly offered his elbow to the young Ljósálfar healer, escorting her up the stairs behind Gunnar and Dáinn, each of whom supported the injured Durinn under a broad, armor-clad shoulder.
Skjold grinned at Haldor as the two of them followed Inga up the stone stairwell, through the heavy oaken door, back into the firelit cave.
While Gunnar and Dáinn settled Durinn in a sleeping area down the hall, Dvalinn seated Skadi at his trestle table and gestured for Haldor and Skjold to sit at her side.
Inga washed blood from her hands in a wooden basin carved into the worktable near the hearth, pouring water from a ceramic pitcher to rinse away the ash soap.
With a clean linen cloth, she dried her hands near a vast collection of healing herbs displayed upon stone shelves carved directly into the wall of the cave above the wooden counter where she prepared meals.
Clay jars covered with cloth-tied lids lined the shelves, amidst an assortment of dried leaves and flowers hanging from hooks.
In stoppered bottles of precious blue and green glass, herbal tinctures and essential oils glimmered in the firelight.
The cleansing aromas of sage and thyme, the pungent tang of garlic and yarrow, and the piney, resinous scent of juniper berries reminded Haldor of úlvhild’s thatched hut in the dense woods near la Forêt du Loup—the Wolf Forest of étretat in the Land of the White Chalk Cliffs.
The familiar herbal scents comforted him, as if she’d wrapped him in her fragrant volva embrace.
Skadi’s crystalline voice flowed like a cool, cleansing stream. “I will need fresh water from the underground spring—the cascade that pours down the mountain into the waterfall pool. And a clean linen cloth, to wash his wound.”
“I’ll fetch the water, my lady.” Gunnar emerged from the hall and appeared in the doorway, followed by Dáinn, who took a seat at the table beside Dvalinn. “Won’t take but a moment.” He selected a ceramic pitcher from the shelf and disappeared out the heavy oak door.
“How will you heal him without herbs?” Inga poured pewter goblets of mead and served everyone before sitting across the table from Skadi. Curiosity and wonder gleamed in her wide, inquisitive eyes.
“With the Light Elven magic of nen glir.” Skadi’s lovely face glowed with radiant light. “The Ljósálfar song of water.” Skadi searched the folds of her deep blue cloak and withdrew a silver bowl whose rim was etched with an interlocking pattern of Laguz runes.
Haldor instantly recognized the name nen glir. úlvhild had told him how Skjold’s mother Ylva, a Celtic healer, had used it to cure her husband Sk?rde when he’d been sliced by a Dokkálfar blade in the Frankish attack on Jarl Rikard’s fortress of Fécamp.
“My mother used nen glir to cure my father—the Dragon of Denmark— when he was critically wounded in battle by a Dokkálfar sword.” Skjold leaned toward Skadi, delight dancing in his deep blue eyes. “She told me that the Ljósálfar healer Luna had given it to her as a wedding gift.”
Skadi stared at the trio of water droplets—the Veil of Vision— inked beneath Skjold’s left eye.
“You inherited the gift of sight through water from her.” With a delicate forefinger, she traced the patterns of runes tattooed on Skjold’s forearms. As if responding to her Light Elven touch, the runes shimmered in glowing waves.
“And Ljósálfar magic flows in your veins.”
Gunnar reentered the cave, shutting out the frosty, salty chill behind him by closing and bolting the heavy oak door. He strode across the vast hearth chamber and placed the ceramic pitcher on the oak table before Skadi. “Will this be enough, my lady?”
“That will be plenty. Thank you, Lord Gunnar.” While Skadi carefully poured some of the spring water into her silver bowl, the gruff, stolid woodcutter smothered a smile, inordinately pleased at her addressing him with a title of respect.
“Please remove the vambrace from your injured arm, Lord Falk.” Skadi waited while Haldor unstrapped the protective leather wrap, embellished with real falcon feathers and tooled with Nordic runes.
Inga gasped at the gruesome sight of the atrocious wound. “It’s already festered. And the poison is spreading.”
Indeed, the sinister black swirls Haldor had observed only moments ago had already snaked up the entire length of his arm.
Skadi folded a swath of linen on the table and rested Haldor’s arm on top of the soft cloth. The silver bowl, filled with water from the spring, shimmered in the firelight beside it. “May I please use your dagger? The Dokkálfar took mine when they captured me.”
Haldor withdrew the blade from his belt and handed it to Skadi.
While everyone at the table watched in wide-eyed wonder, Skadi pricked the tip of her finger and carefully dripped three droplets of blood into the water.
As crystalline notes of her pure voice floated like music from a flute, her long fingers fluttered over the silver bowl.
The Laguz runes inscribed along the rim began to glow, and the water within radiated a brilliant ice blue light.
Dipping slender fingers into the silver basin, Skadi poured the cleansing water over Haldor’s noxious wound, the fluid notes of her song flowing from her like the waterfall cascading into the clear pool.