Chapter 37
Katla sat by Ulf Skallagrimsson’s bedside through the dark watches of the night as his life wheezed out of him. He’d drunk enough mead to send him into a stupor so deep he should have been insensible, but Ulf balanced on the cusp between life and death, fighting for each breath.
“Be at peace,” she told him. If he must suffer a straw death, she wished it would at least be an easy one.
“No, I must wait for Brandr,” he said, his voice a wisp of sound.
Katla turned her face away. She couldn’t let his father see her hopelessness.
“He’s coming, girl. I feel it.”
Katla wished she did. She hadn’t felt anything since that horrific vision. It was as if her heart had gone numb. Like a limb that had gone to sleep, the muscle in her chest felt like a heavy void, taking up space inside her but only as dead weight.
Someone was shouting in the distance, and Katla gave herself a small shake.
“I’ll be right back,” she said to Ulf.
“Hurry.”
She pushed into the main long hall and found all her people stirring. The double doors at the far end of the longhouse swung open and let in the dawn. And her brother.
“Brandr Ulfson,” Finn shouted, slightly winded from sprinting up the hill from the wharf. “He’s returned. Malvar Bloodaxe is dead, and his forces routed!”
Katla’s chest was full of prickles, as if the blood only then began rushing back into her numb heart. She ran down the center of the long hall and out into the pearly light. Brandr and his friends were making their way up the winding path. She drank in the sight of his golden head.
Her people spilled out of the longhouse behind her. Finn was shouting out details of the sea battle and the way Bloodaxe’s force had dissolved before Brandr’s unconventional use of a southern weapon that incinerated the lot of them.
Someone started up the chant: “Herra af eldur!”
Lord of Fire.
Brandr topped the last rise and stopped when he saw her. The way her insides sizzled at the sight of him, she could well believe he was the lord of flames.
“My very own ice princess.”
The rumbling timber of his voice reverberated in her head, and she heard his smile in the warm sound.
“If I was ice, you have melted me, my love,” she Sent back to him and lifted her skirts so she could run unimpeded into his arms.
***
Ulf was still alive when Katla led Brandr back to his bed. Her husband’s sadness pressed on her chest, as if it were her own grief.
“Bloodaxe?” Ulf asked between gasps.
“Dead,” Brandr affirmed.
Ulf’s eyes closed in satisfaction, and he nodded. Then he reopened his eyes to fix Brandr with a steady gaze. “Does your brother yet live?”
“I left him alive, but—”
“But I will probably see him again before you do. Is that long face you’re wearing for your brother or for me?”
“Both.” Brandr swallowed hard, and Katla gripped his hand tightly to offer her support.
“In my life, I have done many terrible things. But when I look at you, I see one thing that turned out right.” Ulf’s chest rose in a shuddering gasp.
“Despite my best efforts to bend you otherwise.” His blood-stained mouth twitched in a half smile.
“So you see, I do not mind to die now. I am joined to my people, knowing I leave a worthy jarl in Jondal. Rule long, son.” He reached out a quavering hand. “Rule well.”
***
Ulf would not have liked to be buried, Brandr knew.
So, he was sent to his gods in the old way, in a small soul boat built specially to become his floating pyre.
Once the craft cleared the mouth of the inlet, Brandr arced a blue flame to it from the shoreline and watched it burn until the last charred spars sank beneath the waves.
He put an arm around Katla’s waist and drew her close. “We need to go home, I’m thinking.”
“I’m already packed.”
“What? I won’t have to abduct you this time?”
“No. I can’t wait to see Linnea again. I’m sure she’ll have grown so while we’ve been gone, we’ll scarcely know her,” Katla said. “Besides, Finn has things well in hand here. The people are rebuilding. Everyone knows what they need to do without me goading them along.”
Brandr kissed her temple. “Don’t fret, woman. You still have me to goad.”
“And don’t you forget it.” She smacked his chest playfully. He caught up her hand and pressed a kiss in her palm. Heat bloomed between them.
“But Finn will want to come with us for this trip. He left Inga at Jondal, and I’m thinking we’ll have a wedding before they sail back to Tysnes.”
Brandr nodded. “A good beginning.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, reveling in the contentment she felt rolling off him. It was like the smell of fresh, warm bread, or the comfortable texture of well-worn linen on her skin.
“Ja. Finn and Inga had a rough beginning. I only hope they find the mighty passion as we did,” she said. “Then whatever befalls them, they’ll have a good ending too.”